Great marketing

Spammers, hucksters, cheats, hacks, and even well-intentioned but ultimately short sighted (and kinda icky-feeling) approaches all stem from the same misinterpretation of marketing: The belief it’s about “grabbing” attention.

In truth, marketing is about earning trust. It’s about showing, not telling. It’s about proving you’re different — not the one-off, random kind of different large agencies try to force down our throats come Super Bowl Sunday. It’s about the kind of different — a refreshing different — that can only be shown over time. (Turns out reputation is one of those things you can’t just purchase with a 30-second spot.)

So if marketing is about trust and proof and providing value, not merely declaring oneself to be X, Y, or Z, then we need to focus on how trust happens. It happens over time. It requires the mentality that we need to earn things, not buy or blast our way towards them.

Great marketing isn’t about who arrives. It’s about who stays.

Maybe start there, and see where the work will take you now.

For those who believe in this idea, I’m inviting you to listen to my new(ish) podcast, 3 Clips. We go inside the creative parts and pieces of great shows to understand this new marketing mandate: what it takes to do something others choose to stay with.

Listen and subscribe anywhere. All links and episodes here.

— — —

If you’re not a subscriber, join the email list to get 3-5 short ideas like this each week.