Unless you work for a tiny startup, chances are your business has multiple individuals or even an entire department dedicated to marketing. While it’s important to have employees focused on actual marketing activities, many aspects that go into a marketing mindset can and should be applied to your organization as a whole.
Here are some of the top attributes that define the marketing approach to business as well as how they can impact other areas of a company’s internal operations.
Marketers Obsess Over the Customer
The primary goal of a marketer is to get the word out regarding their company’s products and services. In other words, marketers must both find and communicate with consumers who have the potential of becoming paying customers.
This naturally leads to a very customer-centric perspective when it comes to how marketers operate. They naturally come to act with an “outside-in” attitude that sees every activity, strategy, and even each piece of content from the perspective of a prospective buyer. This focus helps marketers identify target audiences, customer pain points, and unique selling propositions that can enhance their communicative activities.
In the same sense, business owners and even their employees should adopt this customer-first perspective throughout their business efforts. Everything from choosing a customer-relatable name for your business to creating new products and providing a quality customer journey should be seen through the lens of your customers.
Marketers Are Always Adapting
Marketers exist at the forefront of business innovation. Things like online marketing and an increasingly global marketplace have necessitated a shift from traditional marketing practices to ever-evolving 21st-century promotional tactics.
This perpetual adaptation organically helps marketers embrace an adaptive mindset when challenges and troubles arise. They don’t become embedded in certain methods of operation. Instead, they learn to shift and adjust to the interest and needs of their customers.
Once again, their fellow non-marketing coworkers can also benefit from this mindset. Rather than becoming entrenched — or more likely mired — in a particular way of doing business, everyone from C-suite executives to customer service representatives should always be willing to adjust their activity when it can lead to things like greater productivity, quality, and effectiveness. This naturally enables your business to remain relevant and aligned with customer expectations.
Marketers are Comfortable with Technology
The online marketing phenomenon has completely revolutionized the marketing industry. Once upon a time marketing was fairly limited to things like word-of-mouth, radio, television, and print mediums. Each of these had limited reach that was further restricted by each organization’s marketing budget.
The advent of the internet changed the equation completely. Practically overnight, marketers found themselves given access to a host of tools, such as social media, SEM, and emails. These gave them nearly infinite reach and could be adapted to nearly any size budget. Additionally, marketers learned to use technology within their internal activities as well, such as a content marketing team using task management software to avoid bottlenecks in the content creation or editing process.
Business professionals can learn from this growth-oriented mindset that is willing to embrace technology as it develops. Rather than seeing tech as a threat to existing activities, it should be viewed as a tool that can enhance current behaviors. This doesn’t just tend to increase productivity, but it can be one of the most important factors in keeping your company up to date and relevant within your industry, as well.
Marketers Know the Numbers Don’t Lie
Marketers may be steeped in creativity, especially when it comes to things like strategies and content creation. However, a true marketing mindset is also aware of the fact that their industry is dictated by cold, hard numbers.
A mesmerizing marketing campaign may be fun to look at, but if it doesn’t provide measurable and effective results, it’s going to be a failure.
Professionals from all career paths can benefit from this “results really do matter” outlook. Maintaining a practical, outcome-oriented mindset can help to direct strategy, eliminate waste, and set genuine, SMART goals that can impact both the short- and long-term success of your company’s operations.
Marketers Love Feedback
Finally, marketers love feedback. They’re not only willing to listen to customer criticism and complaints, they actively use surveys and analytics to try to understand how they can improve their customer acquisition efforts.
Business professionals throughout your company can apply this same feedback-focused mentality to fuel innovation, improve methodologies, and shape future products to better meet the needs of your customers.
Using Marketing to Improve Your Entire Operation
A marketing mindset includes a focus on the customer, the numbers, new tech, and a growth mindset. While all of these attributes are essential for effective marketing, they can also have a dramatic effect in nearly every other area of your business.
Customer service, R&D, sales, IT, and even management can benefit. A willingness to put the customer first, measure results, adapt to new technology, and always be learning can keep your business in tip-top condition as you survive and thrive in the years ahead.