Marketing advice isn’t easy. At least it’s not easy in the same way that selling beer, widgets, houses, holidays, or countless other spheres of marketing expertise.
It’s complex in very specific ways which is why there are even fewer marketing people who “get” advice than there are great advisers who “get” marketing.
{Venn diagram; on the left people who know how to market well, on the right those who understand the advice proposition, tiny intersection).
This isn’t a criticism, but it’s an important thing to understand before you:
- Invest thousands to get someone else to do it for you.
- Roll up your sleeves and do it yourself.
As a business owner, I think it’s important to know how to do something, whilst also accepting that maybe I shouldn’t be the one to do it.
Understanding how for me is a non-negotiable.
Who is up for discussion?
If you’d like to work with me over the next three weeks on this, the details are below.
If not, well, I wanted to share 5 key ways marketing advice is different, so you can be sure to brief anyone who comes in to do it for you before they start spending the cash.
- Sales Cycle – 98% of people who visit your website or find you via other means won’t book a meeting. If your marketing expert doesn’t have a plan for them, you’re playing hit or miss. Expensive.
- Complexity – Precision and detailed information might result in better advice, but 80% of what you know they do not need to know.
- Differentiation – If what you’re offering sounds pretty much the same as what everyone else is offering, then it’s not your marketing that’s bringing in the leads.
- Duning Kruger – We used to think people who didn’t know stuff worried about it, until two psychologists proved the exact opposite. All this talk about financial literacy is pointless unless they agree with you first.
- Language – Unless the stuff you’re talking about sounds like the problems they’re thinking about, they’ll assume you’re talking to someone else.