My last post was a bit different than the majority of the content we share on the MINDSCAPE blog as it related more to personal positioning than it did to marketing. The interesting thing about personal positioning is how closely it’s actually related to your marketing and the positioning of your company and the products and services you offer. This post will showcase the similarities, as well as the pitfalls to avoid with your marketing.
Differentiation is Critical
It’s very easy to get in the habit of obsessively checking out your competition, as well as companies you don’t compete with that reside within the same industry. I consider this habit to be a bad one because it can lead to being reactionary and potentially cause more harm than good.
Although it requires more work and brain power to make tactical marketing decisions based on the insights you generate through reviewing data, it’s the best way to serve your personas. The patterns you find in the data can also lead to you discovering the points of differentiation that are most compelling to your visitors.
If you don’t believe me, that’s fine, but it’s my belief (and I have data to back it up), that mirroring your competitions tactics will immerse you into a sea of sameness and it’ll be extremely challenging to stand out. Pay attention to the data, and figure out ways to actively engage with your existing customers and ask them what makes you different from your competition and compelled them to choose you.
Be Proactive
Using data can also allow you to identify trends before a customer or prospective customer decides to pick up the phone and voice a concern. This is much better than waiting for them to reach out, and then actively reacting to their concern. Following the latter pattern will typically lead your customer losing confidence in your ability to lead and make it appear as though you don’t take action until they complain.
If you notice a high abandonment rate on your lead form, on your shopping cart, or on one of your landing pages and are watching your conversion rate plummet, you should call an emergency meeting with your team. Put your heads together and actively diagnose the challenge that could be leading to these negative results. Work as hard as you can to avoid the, “let’s wait and see if it just improves with time” mentality. I personally believe that this mentality will lead to habitual procrastination, and that is never good.
Be Adaptable
The digital landscape is constantly evolving. Your personas are constantly faced with shifting variables when it comes to identifying and researching solutions for their pain points. You must keep your finger on the pulse of their segment and actively adapt your marketing to fit this ever shifting target.
Be Self-Motivated
It’s not difficult to find motivation as a marketer once you look at data and gain an understanding of the limited “shelf life” most marketers have within an organization. Personally, I don’t believe that pain, or the avoidance of pain is a good motivator.
Think about it…
If you happen to be in a job where you look around and the majority of your team has been there for 10 plus years, and the company is bumping along flatly with their annual revenue, the trap of becoming comfortable and accepting mediocrity is very real. What does this do for your career? How long will it be until the flat performance of that company leads to declining numbers and layoffs?
I believe it’s critical to know WHY you do what you do so the motivation is internal, instead of externally. There isn’t much “good” that comes from the need for external validation, and in fact, it will most likely lead to a life of “taking what you get.” If, conversely, you know why you do what you do, and what aspect of your job provides you with energy instead of draining your energy … you’ll find motivation internally instead of finding comfort in an area where you’re relying on shifting circumstances to provide you with a steady stream of motivation.
Leave a comment below and let us know any strategies you use for differentiation, adaptability, proactivity or motivation. I hope you can see the direct correlation between how settling for “average” personally can feed directly into the performance of the marketing work you do for your organization, and the fact that neither lead to anything positive.
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