James Martin’s Post

something i didn't appreciate earlier in my career: so much of marketing is assigning effort to things - what is the opportunity cost of doing this? what are we forgoing by doing this? - are we putting enough effort in to make this worthwhile? or are we needlessly over-investing? - where should we double down and invest way more effort? where should we totally cut our losses and stop? - what extra benefit can we get from this existing effort? true at the macro level (campaigns, channels) but also the micro (individual articles, videos, posts)

🤔What is marketing? This is genuinely the best explanation I have ever heard ! Many people assume that marketing simply involves advertising and sale. Or is it all about communication? Huh, so many concepts, so much ambiguity. This little story is the best explanation I have ever heard! If a circus is coming to town and you put up a sign, 💡 That's 𝐚𝐝𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it through the town, 💡 That's 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 If the elephant walks through the mayor's flowerbed and the local newspaper writes a story about it, 💡 That's 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲 If you get the mayor to laugh about it, 💡That’s 𝐩𝐮𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐜 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 But if you tell them about the various entertainment booths you have, the fun they will have, and answer their questions, 💡That’s 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 And if you planned the entire thing, 💡That’s 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 !!! You want more of this stuff? Subscribe to my weekly newsletter 👋

"Without marketing, people don’t move." Just came across this wildly insightful piece from Dr. Marcus Collins about the role of marketing within an organization: "Without marketing, people don’t move. They don’t buy, they don’t vote, and they don’t click. Despite this fact, marketing is often seen as a cost center instead of the profit center that it is. In fact, marketing is the only profit center of a company. R&D is a cost center; a company doesn’t make money on its R&D until it goes to market with the product—so is the same with manufacturing and HR. The company doesn’t make money on any of these functions until it goes to market and people move." !!!!!! Well worth the five minutes of your day (link below)!

The only time you don’t need to know marketing is if you’ve got a team that will know it on your behalf, & even when you have a team, you will find it challenging to fully optimise your marketing without an understanding of what your team is doing

Been watching a ton of Death of the CMO posts. If it didn’t bear directly on the job I’d ignore but honestly this isn’t what’s happening. Marketing has become more valuable. The use of effectiveness principles have become better, and M marketing is finally getting a seat at the C-suite table. This is good. I’ll elaborate. Now that marketing is [slightly] better understood, the importance of it as a product of the company is becoming more clear. It’s no longer adjacent to the product it sells. It’s a feature of it. Marketers started speaking business. And that should make marketing more exciting and competitive than it’s ever been.

Marketing is a double-edged sword. If you’re great at what you do, marketing will amplify that and help you reach more people. But if you’re not? Well, marketing will just make that more obvious too. Bottom line: Focus on being awesome first. Then let marketing do the rest.

Marketing campaigns that seemed great, but FLOPPED: ⛔️ New Coke ⛔️ The Ford Edsel ⛔️ Pepsi Blue ⛔️ Apple Newton Marketing campaigns that seemed dumb, but CRUSHED: ✅ Just Do It ✅ I'm lovin' It ✅ Think Different ✅ What's In Your Wallet? The best marketing is helpful and simple.

Three things I wish I knew before working in marketing There are going to be people - your boss , colleagues or clients that think marketing is easy You're going to spend * so * much time in front of a screen and on your phone , so make time for breaks It's not always fun , and it can be incredibly boring and mundane #digitalamarketing #socialemediamarketing

Marketing is so much easier when the CEO understands it Here are some signs that the CEO doesn't get marketing - They think short-term only - They treat you like an order-taker - They don't prioritize brand-building - They want you to function like a digital sales team - They spend 95% of their time helping sales > marketing - They constantly ask you to do random, one-off projects - They give you no support and scold you when results aren't there Have you felt these before? As DG used to say, "Life's too short to work for a CEO who doesn't get marketing." When the CEO doesn't get marketing, it throws off the rhythm of the team. You could be working on all the right things, but the CEO doesn't see it that way. They want you to work on something else and constantly distract you from the things that'll actually grow the marketing function. . . Copied from Matthew Carnevale

Marketing is the flag on your boat. It tells people this is the ship to get on because we're going where you want to go. What good is a ship without a flag? Your marketing is what gets customers on board. But do you know how to speak their language and truly connect?