What’s the point of marketing lately?
“…often marketing is used for hollow products that don’t speak and it’s the only way you can sell them.”, Tom Ford shared to the interviewer. This was in response to a question from the host about maintaining relevancy in an ever changing market through marketing itself. This particular interview was 15 years ago.
Tom Ford never replied to how to implement a marketing strategy that works. Instead, he shared that a quality product is inherently desirable. That businesses spend so much time trying to market products that are not very great, and wondering why they cannot catch up.
Tom Ford caught on something that is extremely relevant today.
The internet is filled with marketing hacks that will finally help you unlock cashflow and scale fast.
But it feels wrong. Marketing to us has become a bad word, a sour taste and a get rich quick scheme hidden in fancy language.
Businesses are forgetting that the challenge is to have a product or service that is desirable to your audience. The challenge is not to create language and campaigns to get people to make you a ton of money. Approaching it with that mindset will only lead you dry, wondering why no matter how much marketing you try- it never works.
Let’s break down common mistakes surrounding marketing, then let’s talk about what marketing is.
“If they put on a pair of pants and their butt doesn’t look good no matter how much marketing you’ve had, they’re walking out the store, they’re not buying those pants.”
This interview is gold, and points out something key. There are factors you cannot control, and if your product is not quality in the first place, why expect it to sell? Lately businesses are starting with how do I make more money, rather than starting with how they can make services and goods that are desirable and fit the consumer needs.
Marketing does not sell your product. Your product sells itself, and marketing (through advertising) helps your product be visible.
Marketing is a facet of growth for a business, but it is not your business. There’s not much to add to that, other than an example of what goes wrong when you do this.
You spend a lot of money, time, effort, hiring a team, outsourcing work to market better. The first campaign works, but you forgot you’re a plumber. You didn’t do the services well, no one comes back. The end.
“Advertising is of course important because advertising is the final design, it’s the last layer that speaks to the customer that tells them what you have.”
Advertising is merely capturing the attention of your audience with a good product. Marketing is an umbrella that contains the term advertising, but marketing is not advertising. Marketing is the strategy implemented to merge buyers and sellers together to create a desired outcome, and a leg of it is advertising.
Without a desirable product, there is no amount of money you could shovel into marketing that could make a campaign work.
So what even is marketing, rather, what is good marketing?
Good marketing leans on a simple equation.
Communicating your value to your audience is marketing. Communication is your tool, and looks like many things. Your marketing channels, websites, experiences & more. Your value is the product or goods and services you provide. Your audience is the perfect fit for those services. And that is how you market. Defining each category properly, and with excellence and research, you’ll nail marketing for your business.
Marketing is not SEO, PPC, GEO, CRO, UGC… Those are just channels in your chosen communication.
Face challenges accurately by assessing situations as a whole. Seeing a dip? Don’t ponder only how you can change your marketing strategy. Take a look at your products and services. Compare similar products, market fit, and experience.
Because most of the time, if your marketing is not working- it’s because you’re selling something your audience doesn’t really care about.
