If you are a marketer (even if you are a social media marketer, content marketer, SEM or SEO) let me ask you something: what does marketing represent for you?
But don’t talk in definition terms or other clicheic ideas that you’ve heard in some podcast or read in some speciality book. What does marketing represent FOR YOU?
Not for your business or for your customers. Not even for your boss or for your clients. Especially for you. What is marketing?
The problem is that for some of us, marketing is about numbers. I invest “x” number in this so I want “Y” number of that. I have “X” followers, likes, comments and shares. I have “x” traffic on the blog. I have “x” members in my mailing list. I want “x” number, I have “y” number and I want to achieve “z” numbers.
Who is behind those numbers? The customer. What are the customers? People. What do people have and numbers don’t? Life, emotions, personalities and attitudes.
[Tweet “People are not numbers. “]
(this is a quote I first heard from my friend and colleague, Marian, who said it in a radio show we do weekly)
People are beings who interact, who buy, who complain, who cry, who laugh, who tell stories.
This is why numbers in social media sometimes just don’t count. This is why marketers should look even deeper in the comments, look at their audience and connect with it in the most human way possible.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m ok with the numbers. Because numbers are telling us where we were, where we are and where we want to be. But they can’t tell us how the people feel (if they buy our product it doesn’t mean that they are happy with it – maybe it’s the only kind of product they can get in their area). A like doesn’t mean that people really love your post on social media.
Don’t look at your audience as a number, look at it as a community who feels, who has needs and desires and who wants to be listened.
People are not numbers.
And now let’s get back to our first question: What is marketing for you?
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