About
Carylis Palacios
The best digital marketing strategies are never built around how consumers behave, but why they do it. Their needs and desires. That’s why stories that center around these motivations, never die.
From history to fiction to personality quizzes, storytelling is behind everything that makes us tick. I use storytelling to help brands connect with real humans, in the real world.
Great marketing in a nutshell
Real value
One of the most critical components of marketing is plain old empathy. Understanding our market and how our business has the potential to change people’s lives. Back when I started working in marketing, it was by pure change. I’d say the only reason I managed to “get away with it” was because I promoted something amazing. I was selling people’s chance to live the life they wanted, for themselves as well as their families.
Now, not everyone has something so literally life-changing to offer. But we all should strive to sell something that has a real impact on the end user.
Specific audience
That brings us, to the second essential aspect of marketing: targeting the right audience. I couldn’t even count how many times I’ve heard, “Everyone can benefit from my business” or, “My business is the best option for anyone looking for XYZ.”
I love the passion… but quite honestly, that has never been the case for anyone I’ve met. All people are different and have varying needs. Consequently, all businesses should cater to different people’s needs. This means, going deep rather than wide, and leveraging uniqueness over fitting in with the crowds.
Identity over trends
Because of the first two points, meaning beyond all-singing-all-dancing trends is paramount. Successful brands, those that connect with and move people, are the ones carrying their message like a badge of honor. No matter what, no matter when.
Awesome brands never compromise their message, values, and goals. And no one likes a sellout!
Goals build up
Focusing on long-term goals is the best way to stay true to our brand’s identity. No matter how great a tactic seems on the surface or how successful it proves for someone else, our criteria shouldn’t flicker.
Achieving marketing goals is about knowing what we want, having a realistic action plan, and sticking to it until results are met.
Rinse and repeat
Changing our tune can be entertaining, but it won’t necessarily drive results. Marketing has many moving pieces, some of which aren’t even close to controllable.
Observations can be more circumstantial than consequential. Some excellent results aren’t repeatable, and some epic fails could have seemed fine on paper. Repeating similar tactics and testing small variants is more effective — and useful — than reinventing the wheel, at least until we have real data to back up our whims.
Stats don’t lie
The most we hype about something, the most suspicious we should be about our own judgement. Subjectivity is the worst enemy of strategy. When building a brand and its marketing strategies, we need to look at results over time and how they play into our overarching goals.
We’ve got to look at the big picture and focus on the path that goes upwards long term. Historic data is all that matters when predicting where our story will take us.
It wasn’t a straight path
Clueless landing
I was a cardiology hospital’s CEO assistant when all young professionals started fleeing Venezuela. Crazy, but not so much as my former boss deciding I was the right person for managing the organization’s website, social media, and PR.
An unexpected hit
As I powered through small tasks, mostly intuitively… I launched a new magazine number and the biggest World’s Heart Day event in the country. Successfully. But without even realizing the magnitude of its audience until the event’s day. That’s when I started to think, maybe, I wasn’t bad at marketing… like at all.
Crossing the Rubicon
I was thrilled with my job and the amazing promotion offer I got thanks to my quick rise at that company. But, Venezuela’s instability worsened every day, and I had to make a decision. Either stay and hope for the best… or leave the country — burning my glowing progress while at it. Needless to say, I left.
100 years of mess
As anyone who’s migrated will know, your career goes to the drain when you leave your country. At least that was my case. I had to start all over again, and it appeared as if I had used all my lucky stars back in Venezuela because this time, scaling on the corporate ladder was rather slow and painful. That’s why I started freelancing.
The good, the bad, and the ugly
Despite freelancing is actually cool, my gigs were lacking in the scope and reach departments. And as I already experienced enough roadblocks, I decided to gain that extra experience at 2x speed. I worked in two marketing agencies, on hundreds of projects, for dozens of companies. I got promoted every time and playing around like a mad scientist, until burnout. Mission accomplished, though. In a few years, I was a veteran.
Stories worth telling
My birthday commitment was to only write stories I believe in, not the ones other people wanted to push the most. Certainly, not the ones which mission flicked as the sexy new thing came along. Now I tell stories that impact people beyond the surface.
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