Marketing - Back to Basics.

Of the marketing titles I've made my way through so far, the most impressionable was the work of Seth Godin. While I recommend giving it a read yourself, I'll save you the 252 pages by summarizing it in two points:

1) The art of Marketing is the art of Storytelling. The fascinating thing about business and commerce is that it exists outside the confines of hard science & is often largely dependent upon human behavior and emotion.

2) As a business, and more so than your product or service, your story is everything. Your story sets you apart, it guides your decision-making processes, and it keeps your organization on the right track. Externally, your story matters equally as much in the eyes of your customers and clients. Too narrow in scope, you lose market capture. Too broad in scope, you face difficulty in converting sales and feel disconnected from your niche. The phrase that's driven home throughout the book and even greets you on the reverse side of the hardcover is this: "People like us do things like this."

With that, as your business scales and the number of transactions, exchanges, products & services, departments, and personnel scale with it, I encourage you to keep things simple and get back to basics with the following questions:

1) Is your story crystal clear?
2) Are you more connected to your customers today than you were yesterday?
3) Is your marketing strategy relatable to those you value most, those who live and breath your industry?
4) Would "people like you," be excited about what you're doing and where you're headed?

As always, if you or someone you know could use support with anything marketing related, lets chat!