Mark Schaefer’s first experiences with marketing and sales were selling flower seeds, Christmas cards and whatever else he could when he was 10 years old. Growing up in a blue-collar family in a small town, it was the only way he could make money for new clothes. From those humble beginnings, Schaefer worked in global sales, PR and marketing positions after studying journalism in college.
Eventually, he set out on his own to start Schaefer Marketing Solutions, with clients ranging from small startups to global brands like Adidas, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer. Schaefer also created the well-read marketing blog {grow}, which led him to author 11 best-selling books, including “Audacious,” “KNOWN” and “The Most Amazing Marketing Book Ever.” He is also the co-host and founder of the popular “The Marketing Companion” podcast.
On this episode of the “Only The Strong Survive” podcast, host Dan Kahn leads an in-depth discussion with Schaefer about entrepreneurship and marketing. Schaefer’s deep insight and knowledge into both subjects make this episode well worth your time. Click on the icon above to give it a watch, and here are our top five takeaways from the interview:
Being bland might be safe, but it doesn’t pay off in marketing.
To form a connection with your customers, you have to know them.
Building a community is just as crucial as building products.
Your personal brand matters.
Asking for help can be the difference between success and failure.
You Can’t Be Boring
Boring is always a safe bet for marketing. Your legal department will love it, and boredom never causes social media teams any heartburn. However, another guarantee of boredom is that it will never make your brand stand out in a sea of bland marketing. If you want to make waves, you sometimes need to toss a rather large rock into the pond.
“One of the things that I talk about in my new book is this scaffolding, this infrastructure we have in our industry that keeps boring in place. It keeps competent in place instead of audacious and instead of creative,” said Schaefer. “It is easy to be average because that is what gets approved by the legal department. It is easy to be average because boring has been institutionalized in most industries.”
Marketing is About Knowing Your Audience
Most people think marketing revolves around creating the right ad. While the right creative is essential, knowing your audience is equally important. To connect with someone, you must know their values, beliefs and needs. Discovering those often takes lots of research and knowledge.
“Marketing is not about the creative, it's about the research. An audacious campaign that set the marketing world on fire was the Nike campaign with the quarterback Colin Kaepernick. They lost $4 billion of market value in 24 hours or something like that. People were burning Nike products in the streets, but they increased their market capitalization in 10 days. The difference was that Nike had the data, they had the numbers,” said Schaefer. “They knew that demographic, and they knew to be welcomed on that island, they needed to earn trust.”
Build a Community
Brands can be hyper-fixated on the next great product or idea. However, building community is just as crucial for a company as its products. Developing a community creates a connection with your customers that keeps them constantly returning to your brand instead of your competition.
“As human beings, we don’t just want community; we need community because it helps form our identities. No matter what happens in this world, if a brand can create a community, it is the ultimate emotional connection,” said Schaefer. “People don’t just love your soft drink or your cosmetics; they love each other in a community, and they will literally belong to a brand.”
Build Your Brand, Too
Building a personal brand is important whether you are a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or just starting in the business world. However, many people don’t know how to go about it. For Schaefer, one of the best ways to build your brand is to identify the problems you are the best at solving.
“You have to be clear about where you fit in the world. What is the problem that is keeping people up at night with your customers or with your company? What is special about you that can help people solve that problem in a unique way? It takes some work to really think about that,” said Schaefer. “But you will be rewarded if you spend some time thinking about that, because once you can finish the sentence ‘Only I…', your entire personal branding and marketing plan unveils itself.”
Ask For Help
All entrepreneurs need to be highly confident in themselves. However, that self-assuredness shouldn’t be misplaced, and it doesn’t mean you know everything. Schaefer learned the hard way that asking for help is okay and can be the difference between success and failure.
“I had a pretty big business failure. It was a software I developed with some other people. We put together this big team, and I invested a lot of my own resources and money into it. It worked, but the reason it failed was because I was a terrible salesperson,” said Schaefer. “The B2B sales process just wore me down, and I thought that there were 25 other things I would rather be doing than this. The mistake I made was that I knew I was out of my area of expertise, and I didn’t bring in the right people to help.”
Share this post