7 Game-Changing Marketing Mindsets I Learned in My First 7 Years

Carylis Palacios' experience and digital marketing mindsets

Since the beginning of 2017, a million things have changed in digital marketing. However, there are a few marketing mindsets I’ve learned that have proven to be consistently true over the years. Seven of them, to be exact. In this post, I’ll share them so that you can focus on what’ll continue to matter in the next seven years. And beyond.

#1 Branding and storytelling won’t drive sales on their own.

The use of branding and storytelling in marketing has proven its effectivity. But having a consistent brand with a great story won’t necessarily drive sales. If done well, branding and storytelling make our brands more recognizable. They could also inspire people to trust us.

But it’ll take a great offer and a good sales pitch to move your audience from engaged to sold. Especially if there are logistics involved. Timely order fulfillment, efficient customer support, and satisfaction guarantees will always be defining factors for sales. Especially if your product or service is a high ticket one.

Customer experience optimization wins the first place; awesome marketing is a very close second.

#2 Goals drive the strategy but empathy fuels content marketing.

When crafting our marketing strategies, it’s all about finding a way to get us closer to our goals. But we need to leave that approach behind when moving from planning to execution. Whenever we create a marketing asset, regardless of the format or platform, our goals take the back seat.

I know this is a scary mindset shift, but bear with me a moment. Customers will only stay around for something that satisfies their needs and desires. As they should. That’s why we must develop a goal-driven strategy to guide our content marketing, but in the content creation phase, we should care more about how our audience will perceive the message. Otherwise, there will always be a wall standing between what we share and what our ideal customers want to hear.

When it comes to content marketing, you need to step into your customer’s shoes and let their needs guide you.

#3 In copywriting, ultra-specific messaging beats generic inclusivity.

Marketing goes hand-in-hand with psychology. And, as I see it, there’s only one way we can make our marketing resonate deeply with our audiences. It’s by understanding their customer journey and pushing psychological triggers to stimulate an emotional response.

We cannot achieve that sort of response with a diluted message. That’s why saying, “This perfume is the perfect fragrance for anyone wanting to feel special, after work or on a date.” is kinda good. But, “Splash it all over and feel like a million bucks wherever you go.” is a thousand times more powerful. The trick is capturing the emotion of a very particular situation.

Don’t fear people won’t get it; we’re all wired to make everything about ourselves. It’s human nature!

#4 Being consistent is more effective than trying to get the perfect timing.

Social media is like a vast multiverse, with each platform representing a different dimension that plays by a specific set of rules. Decoding this multiverse would take us, simple humans, years, if not decades. Now, just like a multiverse, there is a small subset of those rules that’s true in all dimensions: constants. In social media, the main constant is time.

Posting exactly what people want when they’re looking for it — and having the results match your goals — is good timing. It’s also very rare and almost impossible to predict, like a supernova. But time goes on, and longer processes remain, producing the energy and resources the multiverse (social media) requires for dimensions (platforms) to exist. That’s consistency. I’ve seen very few perfect timing successes, but thousands of cases in which consistency paid off long-term.

You have a better chance by staying consistent on social media, than by trying to “hack the fiber of the multiverse.” Or, the algorithm.

#5 What’s a hot trend today might be passé tomorrow.

We should never, ever, ever base our marketing solely on trending topics and viral formats. Trends are fun, fresh, and cool while they last. But just like there is nothing iconic about those who change their entire sense of fashion to match whatever is in vogue today… No one will ever remember how “cool” our brand was for the week a particular trend lasted.

It’s safer — and smarter — to focus our efforts on developing a long-term strategy. And if a particular trend comes and aligns with our strategy and brand identity, by all means, let’s leverage that extra push.

You want to have a brand strategy that doesn’t rely on chasing the latest trend. It just doesn’t build up.

#6 Marketing is like chess, you better play it like if you were at war.

It’s easy to focus on how we’ll execute our marketing, but sometimes forget the why. This is specially important because the options seem limitless most times. But limitless is distracting, and exhausting. We don’t want to fight every battle, but choose the most rewarding ones. Then, cherry-pick tactics that’ll win those battles with the least amount of loses.

This applies to everything in marketing. From deciding our channels to how many times a week we’ll post on social, to which is our target demographic.

To identify which “battles” are worth fighting for, you can use the Pareto principle and its 80-20 rule.

#7 The road to hell is paved with good intentions; trust your KPIs.

Marketing is part art and part science, that’s why it’s incredibly challenging to predict its success. But one thing is for sure. We won’t win by following our hunches or external, uninformed input. That’s why a data-driven approach is key.

Not that we all need to become some data nerd to make our marketing work, but dipping our toes into the numbers is essential. As an old boss of mine used to quote all the time, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”

Let numbers guide your brand’s creative efforts, and you’ll watch how art and science take you places.

Adopt game-changing marketing mindsets starting today

The great thing about changing marketing mindsets is that you don’t need more than little shifts in perspective to see their benefits. It’s not about changing which platforms you are on, or how you market your products or services, or throwing out the window your marketing budget. It’s just about having the right intent behind what you do.

So, there’s no excuse not to try them out and see what happens next. I promise you, you won’t regret it!

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