Read This if You Hate Marketing

Feb 24, 2009
11 Comments

Most people are simply terrible at marketing.

It’s kind of insane, when you think about it. Marketing activities bring in customers, without which you have no business. This makes marketing the most important activity you can do. After all, customers do not just magically show up and throw money at you. Without marketing, you have nobody to buy your stuff. Without marketing, you have no business.

And yet, people constantly (and bitterly) complain about how much they hate to spend any time, effort, or money on marketing. The most important thing that helps them get what they want? They hate it and they stink at it.

Um… huh?

That’s like saying they want to be in business, but they don’t want to actually sell anything or make any money.

I love marketing. Love it. Love. It. Even when I was a kid I loved marketing.

But if you don’t love marketing, that leaves you with a little problem.

How are you supposed to enter the world of blogging and social media and all that other stuff if you hate marketing?

The answer is simpler than you realize.

You change the way you think about marketing.

This is not as hard or as ridiculous as it may seem. Why? Because marketing itself is changing, and in a good way. Blogs and social media are changing the way marketing is done, so that it’s a new game. It’s not the old game that people who “hate marketing” are talking about when the say that. Nosiree. That game has been played. It’s done. And those companies are the ones that are going to be going out of business over the next few years as the economy goes through its readjustment.

New game, new rules.

As a marketing channel, blogging and social media are NOTHING like traditional marketing. They are the opposite of it in almost every way. You don’t have to sound like a marketing brochure. In fact, it’s way better if you don’t. Just be yourself. You don’t have to sound like Crazy Eddie the Used Car Salesman or Precious Roy (bonus points if you know who Precious Roy is).

That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn if you’re going to do it yourself, but one thing you don’t have to do is sell your soul to the devil.

What do you have to do? Learn to write or create content that persuades readers to become customers by building trust and providing value.

Now, that doesn’t sound much like Crazy Eddie, does it?

But what’s crazy about it is… it works.

I’ll talk about the reasons why it works tomorrow. If you’re not subscribed to Remarkablogger, you’ll miss out.

  • I'm not big on 'selling' but I view marketing as different - to me it's letting people know that there is something available that might be of use to them. If you don't let them know through various marketing strategies they might not hear about it - one way of viewing it is by seeing it as offering education, information, a gift and so on. It's up to the recipient if they want to investigate it further.

    Even just by being open to marketing your service or product - you increase your visibility energetically through intention and then law of attraction kicks in and you may not need to market as much as you first thought.
  • I really enjoyed reading this article. The whole marketing thing is new for me and it is kinda overwhelming sometimes. I wouldn't say I hate it. There are days I love it and days I don't.

    On the end its work like anything else. Nothing comes from nothing. I will keep learning and I will try to love it more on these days where I hate it.
  • I love this! I'll often tell people who "hate marketing" that that's ok, they can just focus on creating great communication for their customers & helping them solve their problems instead.

    Because I'm sneaky that way. :)
  • @Sonia - Indeed you are! But now the cat is out of the bag. ;)
  • I guess the real issues are whether you can write good stuff and whether you have the time to write good stuff. It's not so easy for some people - even to sound like themselves. And who is Precious Roy?
  • Great post here. I think I might need more convincing... :) But I just try to keep thinking of marketing as the mechanism that will allow me to do what I love. Glad to have found your blog.
  • Hi Michael,

    I've recently started to read more of Seth Godin's articles and view some of his videos and I realized that all that I though it was marketing it wasn't. Usually people are afraid of the unknown. Just like when you are a kid and you are at the math class and there is a problem you don't know how to solve it : you're afraid not to get a bad grade. Or just like when you're afraid of the dark just because you don't know what's in there.

    I think this is the also thecase with marketing. If you don't know what to do and how to do it you have two options :
    1. you can do the wrong thing and try to avoid marketing and "do things your way"
    or
    2. you can do the right thing and you can learn marketing.

    Another difficult thing is understanding how to apply what you know on marketing and how to adapt it to different products/services.

    But the only way to do it is to learn. It's just like death. You can't avoid it if you want to stay in business. So better learn how to deal with.

    Thanks,
    @TomaBonciu
  • Great points. I too tend to "not like" marketing even though until very recently it was basically my full time job!

    I think in addition to the info on Remarkablogger the most helpful "thinking" suggestion I have been given re: marketing is to think of it as ADDING VALUE.

    That may be a more comfortable way to think about it for some people including me. When I think about adding value to people's lives I can get excited about it.

    I'll be watching you! :)
  • I agree with you, Michael. I'm always surprised at the people who view marketing the same distaste as they would a used car salesman.

    The most effective marketing involves 1) providing prospective customers with good information so that they can make an educated decision, and 2) building a relationship with those prospects so that they trust you and want to do business with you.
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