Your 2023 Marketing Questions Answered
As most of you know, I've become a huge fan of Perplexity.AI this past year, so I thought it only fitting that it should help me with the last post of the year :)
I asked it: "what were the top asked questions about marketing in 2023?"
And it delivered 5 great ones.
The content below? My own thoughts and experiences (not AI generated).
An example of how I think AI tools belong in marketing in 2023 and forward 😉
You might have different questions; and if you share them with me, I'd be happy to write a post about yours too 💞
But for now, let's see what Perplexity came up with:
Question 1: What are your 2023 marketing goals and how are you tracking them?
I recently started running a Digital Marketing workshop for some local organizations focused on what people REALLY need to know about marketing to make good decisions. It covers the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of marketing programs, and the place we start?
No...NOT WHY (sorry, Simon Sinek).
WHAT.
WHAT is your objective. And if you don't have a marketing objective (AKA, a marketing goal), then how do you know how to get there? And when you've gotten there?
You don't.
So, yes, while our WHY dictates a lot of the things we will do, if we don't know the destination, the WHY mostly becomes irrelevant.
2023 continued a trend I've observed in marketing for at least the past 10 years. A movement AWAY from achievement in marketing, and a movement towards doing things to said we did things. Vanity metrics play in hugely here, but you don't have to get suckered into them.
If you KNOW what your goals are (brand awareness, market share, lead generation, sales, customer lifetime value, a specific ROI), you won't get as easily distracted by vanity metrics. Because you'll see the impact of your marketing efforts on your bottom line...which is where you're SUPPOSED to see them.
And when it comes to tracking, I'm a fan of keeping it simple.
Marketing is about SALES.
If Marketing ISN'T contributing to Sales, then what is it doing?
Sure, if you're the Apple's and Coca Cola's of the world, and you have all of the disposable income, go to town on non-trackable marketing.
But most of us DON'T fit into that category.
Our marketing spend matters.
And if you can't track it, or you aren't happy with the tracking numbers you're seeing (as in, they aren't reaching your goal), CHANGE IT.
Question 2: Are there any changes in your target audience?
Ooh, I love that this question is circling the internet. Because people change all the time. Which means, your target audience changes too.
In one of the Crazy, STUPID Marketing episodes, we talked about the impact of the pandemic on people. One of the impacts was that people were so inundated with fear, that fear-based marketing started to be ignored.
What once worked, didn't work anymore.
And there was no going back to "normal".
The people changed.
Which means, your target market changed.
Now, I would hazard a guess that most businesses did NOT re-explore their target markets during this time. Why would I guess that?
Because businesses were so short on revenue they were trying to find it wherever they could. A symptom of the pandemic that has continued.
Companies actually moved FARTHER away from a specific target.
(Which is ALSO a change in target audience BTW.)
When it comes to marketing, if you don't know who you're talking to, it's game over. Because if you're talking to everyone, you're talking to NO ONE.
And while we're at it, let's talk about your Ideal Customer Profile.
How much of it is demographics vs. values-alignment?
I've yet to see a free ICP template that talks about values alignment.
(Oh yeah, because they're free and mostly give you useless information.)
This is where your WHY comes into play.
People who are aligned with you on a values level will continue to be aligned with you on a value level, even when their buying behavior changes.
My relationship with Disney has stayed the same throughout the pandemic, even though my buying behavior has moved from in-person park experiences to digital music experiences.
So here's an idea for 2024, REALLY look at your company and your clients and figure out what you have in COMMON. And use THAT as the foundation of your Target Audience profile going forward.
Question 3: Do you have a brand identity?
Another great question. Mostly because MOST small businesses, especially tech businesses, DON'T have a brand identity.
They have a product. A service. Maybe it's even something totally new that no one has seen before but everyone needs.
But without a brand identity, you're just another "thing" floating around in the ether of the internet.
I've always thought of a brand identity as a person.
Similar to an ICP, but if you imagine your business as a person walking around in a networking room:
What would they look like?
How are they presenting themself?
Who are they talking to?
What are they talking about?
Now compare that to your marketing efforts. Do they match??
Specifically for tech companies, which I feel most new businesses are nowadays, your tech isn't your brand. Your people are, and always will be, your brand.
What they feel. How they behave. The actions they take. The care they show.
THAT'S your brand.
And if you're a solo-founder at this point, same deal.
Your brand is YOU.
If you're hiding behind the scenes? So is your brand. If you're depending on outsourced resources to sell for you? All they can sell is your product (so you'd better hope that THEY have a strong personal brand, otherwise, what are they building trust on?)
And this doesn't mean that you have to start showing up in ways that feel uncomfortable for you 💡
If you're an introvert, that's OK. Profile how YOU build relationships and create your marketing program around that.
After all, there are LOTS of other introverts who might be waiting for precisely that.
Question 4: What is your content strategy?
Ah, content. The thing that SO many companies create yet it delivers little to no value. That's creation over strategy, my friends.
Here, I go back to the goals.
What are you trying to achieve? And what role does content play in that?
AND...is your content effectively delivering on that goal?
Part three is where most content strategies break.
Companies are so concerned about the AMOUNT of content they produce, they forget about what it's DOING.
Let's be honest with ourselves, OK? If you're creating content to start marketing conversations, and it's NOT starting marketing conversations, you don't need MORE of THAT. You need a different approach.
After all, more content is created on a daily basis than one human brain can process in it's lifetime. People are paying more and more attention to what they consume. And they consume things that are in alignment with their beliefs.
So, if you're only creating corporate brochure-ware (AKA content that's only about YOU and not about US), you're not giving people anything to connect with. And your content is going into the void.
And sure, AI can create that for you, but WHY?
We don't want MORE content going into the void.
We want MEANINGFUL content that ignites a relationship.
It takes time and effort to create content THAT CONNECTS. Are you creating the time necessary?
Question 5: How are you ranking in search results?
Honestly, Google will give you great information on this. Then, they'll provide you with paid ways to improve your search results.
Unpopular opinion amongst SEO companies: your search ranking is mostly irrelevant IF you are reaching your sales goals.
And I would also add that search is just ONE way for people to discover your business. So if you've picked a strategy that doesn't involve people randomly searching for things on the internet, then again, this is irrelevant.
The point I'm trying to make here is that it's not GLOBALLY important to rank in search results. Personally, I've never gotten a client from a search results. But then again, I'm not trying to.
My brand identity is based on personal connections, so to me, it doesn't make sense to focus on a luck-based, unknown-search strategy.
Now, that doesn't mean that SEO optimization is a bad tactic, or that it can't work for your organization. But the fact that this question comes up in the top 5 when search optimization is just ONE tactic, is concerning.
Tactics (How, When and Where) should be chosen based on YOUR What, YOUR Why, and YOUR Who. None of them are globally relevant.
This is one of the things that drives me NUTS when it comes to marketing.
People choose tactics based on what OTHER people (or the Internet) tell them are "most effective". But what they fail to observe is that specific tactics work for specific businesses because of their IDENTITY.
Unfortunately, there's no EASY button folks.
So, first decide whether or not how you rank matters to YOU and YOUR People. Then ask yourself WHY?
If the answer is because of something OUTSIDE of your own brand identity, it doesn't make sense for you 💖
A 2023 Summary
2023 continued to follow a lot of dangerous marketing trends. Trends that are continuing to contribute to mass layoffs, especially in tech.
Marketing IS a contributing factor here, folks. Ignore it at your own peril.
If you are continuing to do everything you've always done in marketing, and you didn't hit your sales targets in 2023, marketing IS a problem.
And the internet will only ever be able to tell you what other people have done.
That may or may not actually be the answer for you.
And if you're tired of "trying everything" without seeing any results, it's time to try ONE LAST THING.
