SWIPE FILE

Throughout my marketing career, I’ve kept a SWIPE FILE (inspiration file) of my favorite MARKETING IDEAS: tweets, thoughts, articles, podcasts, ads, Tiktoks and our favorite, MEMES. 

Every week I’ll be sharing 3 of my favorites from my archives + what I’m adding to my swipe this week.

1. Sell Benefits. Not Features.

Insight from: Marketing Examples by Harry Dry

Features tell customers WHAT, and benefits tell customers WHY.

FEATURES describe what your product does. 

BENEFITS are why someone buys your product and how it will make their LIFE better. 

Your audience is looking for a solution to solve THEIR problems.

Claude C. Hopkins said in his book, Scientific Advertising:

“Remember the people you address are selfish, as we all are. They care nothing about your interests or profit. They seek service for themselves. Ignoring this fact is a common mistake and a costly mistake in advertising” 

Our job as marketers is to uncover our audience’s selfish benefit.

Benefits are simple to understand. 

Your audience is busy and distracted. Don’t assume they will understand what your product does.

Tell them. Or better yet, show them. 

As Theodore Levitt says, “People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want to buy a quarter-inch hole!”

2. Internal Marketing Matters

Insight from: ME

Your employees are some of your best marketers (if you let them be). 

If they are excited about what your company’s marketing team is doing, then they will become the best brand ambassadors. 

People already don’t know what marketing does. 

It’s your job as the marketing organization to educate them.

This will help:

• Increase employee buy-in on your marketing efforts and goals
• Get employees excited about your product or service
• With consistent messaging throughout the Company
• Everyone understand the what and the why behind marketing’s actions

How to do this:

• Monthly or weekly marketing update newsletter to employees
• Marketing All-Hands once a month or quarter 
• Using Slack to announce what’s going on
• Meeting with internal stakeholders from different orgs
• Have battle cards how how to talk about the brand or the campaign 

3. Your Content is For Your Audience

Insight from: Tracey Wallace

Your content is not for your leadership team or your VC or your content calendar or the Google algorithm.

Your content is for your audience. 

You are supposed to be the guide. Your audience is the HERO.

Use your content to add value to your audience’s day whether it’s through education, entertainment, inspiration, or information. 

EVERYTHING IS FOR THEM. 

Don’t just create content for your content calendar.

Have an objective as to why you are creating that piece of content and as to how it’s going to benefit your audience.

Once you have this mindset, your content will become something your audience actually wants to consume.

That’s why talking to your audience, sales, customer service, etc and understanding objections, pain points, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), and more is THE LIFEBLOOD OF ANY GOOD MARKETING.

PS. Tracey just launched a newsletter. You should check it out here.

MEME OF THE WEEK