Connection Through Marketing
I recently received a newsletter from Chris Brogan about making a connection through marketing and it made me think about how I’ve been approaching my marketing techniques in the wrong way. I also realized how stressed out I’ve been about the impact my work has been having on my personal life. There is nothing worse than losing your mind to the work you do.
Of course, I’m terribly passionate about my work and I believe in my cause to help the world to become a smarter place. So this little hiccup is not going to stop me. It’s going to push me forward and I hope by telling my story it can help you to also become better and avoid my mistakes.
Chris’ Newsletter ‘The Essence of Marketing’
Marissa and John are in love, Matt.
I watched a video on Facebook of two people with Down’s Syndrome talking about their relationship. What you see are two people who enjoy the feeling of love to the fullest, be it their love of dancing or going to the movies or just eating tasty things. What I took from the video was an appreciation of just how pure they were in their sentiment. There’s not a lot of trepidation with Down’s. You just go straight towards what you want. Marketing should be like that.
Marketing is simple. We mess it up.
The least interesting conversations I ever get in with people are about marketing. Why? Because people want to talk about funnels and mechanics and software and all the least fun parts.
The best parts of marketing are like love. You love what your company makes and you love how it helps people in some way and so you go out there and you find the people who need what you sell, and you help them decide.
That’s marketing. Create the marketplace and facilitate the sale. That’s it.
Marketing isn’t a spreadsheet. That’s just a tool. Marketing isn’t a specific sequence. That’s just a workflow. It’s what we cling to and tinker with when we don’t want to market. All that stuff is there because we think it’s what we need.
Elon Musk deleted the company Facebook pages.
He did. Tesla and SpaceX. Gone. He agreed with everyone that Facebook was too big for its britches and he didn’t want to play any more. Gone.
And so you see marketing people (especially social marketing people) losing their minds. I’ve seen mountains of posts and articles saying that this is a strange time for “social media managers” (whatever those are).
Musk sent a fricken car into outer space on a rocket ship his company built. He made millions of people stop and think and consider and reconnect with dreams long dormant about moving off this particular rock and checking out some nearby planets we might want to add to the collection.
He doesn’t need Facebook. He needs to show love.
Marketing isn’t any particular tool. It’s the connection.
You find people where they are in the checkpoints:
- Awareness
- Evaluation
- Purchase
- Onboarding
- Retention/Referral
You help them by engaging with them and giving them what they need at those phases. You make a connection of some kind. And then you serve them in ways that make their world better.
That’s marketing. That’s love.
Engage. Connect. Serve.
It’s such a simple recipe that WE mess up.
Fire off your rockets into space. Take your love out dancing. Put your big juicy heart to work on reaching the people you need to serve.
Simple. (But not easy.)
—Chris…
chrisbrogan.com
This is the exact email I sent in response to Chris Brogan on 27/3/2018.
Thank you Chris.
I just wanted to send a quick reply to your newsletter. Whether you read it or not doesn’t matter, but if you do that’s great! This is just a way for me to vent after reading this newsletter. Here’s how I feel about connection through marketing.
Lately, I’ve been stressing so hard about marketing my content. I even had to stay in the hospital, luckily only for a day, because I was too stressed it felt like my heart was going to explode. But I realize, especially after reading your newsletter, that all my stress has been for nothing. I’ve been trying too hard to reach people with my content through marketing that I have forgotten about the connection through marketing.
My true purpose in sharing my own content is to help people become more aware of their own ability and to introduce them into my own world of growth and how I’m going about doing that. I guess I realize I’ve been trying to push my beliefs on people which obviously is not the right way to go about connecting with someone. I know too well how much I hate when people force something on me.
I really appreciate you sending this message to me because now that I have a full understanding of why I have been so stressed. I now can actually take a different, more human approach to my marketing and content writing to actually make a connection with the real people out there.
Regards,
Matt Hutson
Related post: Blogger’s Content Guide: Write With Heart
I hope you can learn from this story here especially if you’re a marketer. Don’t get too caught up in marketing schemes. Just flow with your heart and the people will follow with your connection through marketing.
Help me in my mission to make the world a smarter place. Always remember to share what you’ve learned with the people you care most about.
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