Align marketing & technology to achieve business objectives

I’m not a marketer -- but I appreciate the value of multiple perspectives. As a marketing expert colleague of mine likes to say, “nothing within the organization exists in a vacuum. You cannot say the company should be marketing-driven, or technology-driven, or product-driven.” It all needs to work together.

But lately, I’ve begun appreciating marketing more -- how important it is. (It’s part of why I wanted to chat with Mark Schaefer -- learn more below).

Basically, if you want to grow your business, you have to understand your customers. What is the value I can bring to them? Where are they? How will each channel allow you to access them? You need to know these things before you get to the cost of acquisition.

For that you need discipline and data. (When I bring up data, some will instantly pivot to thinking about AI. But I’m talking more fundamentally about recognizing patterns.)

You need to capture and use analytics to make evidence-based decisions for reach, scale and efficiency. You also need to know how to get the right message out to the right individual at the right time. Most of all, you need to know what recurrent patterns exist in marketing, and stay curious -- thinking about the whole customer journey.

A simple example? Take Uber or Lyft. You might check their website, you might download the app and you might even register with the app. You might even take one ride. But if you don't take multiple rides — if your experience is not awesome through the whole process — you never come back. Then all their marketing effort was wasted. 

In my experience, I’ve learned that the most important measure of the value of your marketing is repeat usage. It’s nice if customers visit your website. Great if they buy something. But you know things are really working when they come back for more.

Think about that -- and maybe listen to my chat with Mark, a real marketing expert -- and I guarantee, it will help you think clearly about how to get customers in the door and coming back.