Media buying isn't Marketing (Red flags when talking to agencies)
We are all trying to get what we make in front of the people we have made the product for. In that process, some try their best to learn and do it themselves; some speak to marketers and agencies. All are trying their best to place their product in the right place and convert potential customers.
Recently a discussion caught my interest, "Where is the skill in Marketing"
It caught my interest, not because of the provocative title but because of the misunderstanding of what marketing is misconstrued. So I wanted to follow up with a short article on things that are red flags when talking to marketers or agencies.
MEDIA BUYING ISN'T MARKETING
If you ever speak to anyone about a marketing campaign for your business and all they speak about is:
- PPC on targeted keywords
- Youtube influencers in the pro audio domain
- Display ads on specialist forums
- Targeted ads on relevant subreddits
- Targeted ads on LinkedIn
Then they are not marketers; all they understand is how to get your product in front of a customer. Not a customer your product would convert. Those are two very different things.
So what should you be hearing?
The conversations you should be hearing should be about how a marketer or agency will convert your customer once they reach your product pages. The following are essential things you should probe for in those conversations:
- Persona's - these are the foundation blocks of understanding your customer. How old are they? What are their interests? Where do they hang out on the internet? What are their browsing habits?
- Strategy - How will they convert that customer they now understand so well.
- What is the concept they wish to create to convert your customer?
- What story should you be putting in front of them about your business?
- What problems does your business solve for the customer?
Everything they should be talking about is understanding your potential customer and how they will convert them. Putting a form on a page to collect their information is not marketing. That is data capture.
True, that's is just lead gen and a part of the marketing funnel, but it takes a lot more touchpoints in marketing (and by extension sales) to turn that lead into an SQL/free trial user. But if your ads are not performing well, an agency may help with that.
That being said you're very right about agencies discussing Personas/strategy and more
I might be slightly more forgiving. If they start talking about "targeted" anything, ask about their process for that. They might just be speaking in high-level terms that tell a new entrepreneur what they want to hear (more people see the product) and have more to talk out, or they might not have an answer or a meaningless "your fans" answer, in which case they almost certainly expect the company to have already done the actual marketing work for them.
"Marketing refers to all activities a company does to promote and sell products or services to consumers." by Investopedia
Technically you are right, but when you talk to people who do not have anything to do with media and/or marketing it's both the same.
Getting more customers.
In order to get more customers, the first step is that people have to know about your product.
People are bombarded with 4,000 - 10,000 ads per day which makes it extremely hard to promote a product/business.
Not using paid media takes time, which is often not an option for startups or established companies.
Completely agree, but this article isn't saying don't use paid media.
It's saying paid media isn't what most of marketing is about. It's just a way of getting your product in front of people. It doesn't mean they are the right people or will convert so in most cases it's actually a waste of money if the rest hasn't been thought about.
Hope that makes sense.
This is fantastic. Never looked at it like this before
wow, thank you mike, I lean a lot from this post, since my foundation on marketing is not that good and I only know how to build, once again, thank you
That amazing. It is really helpful information. I want to use it for my page.