Repeat after me: digital marketing is a sales job. digital marketing is a sales job. digital mar… — wait, what? no?
Oh, it’s a marketing job, you say?
Let’s talk about the word, marketing. The word comes from people like you and me taking things, like extra eggs from our urban chickens, to the market.
Once we get to the market, however, we tend towards some consistent behaviors. For example, we are likely to:
- Pick a good market staff location
- Yell out useful information about the price and quantity of our eggs
- Greet those we know (“Hi, Jane”) and those we don’t (“Hello, Sir. I’m Rowan”)
- Make it easy to evaluate our eggs with a well-designed, attractive display rack
- We even have one we can raise or lower based on our customer’s height
Why do we marketers do these things every time we go to market?
You choose:
- Delight customers with a user-friendly customer experience?
- Leverage personalized market-stall technology platforms?
- Sell eggs?
Before you read on, please write your answer on a piece of paper. If you are correct, email me and I’ll send you a free, advance-copy of, “Digital Content Manifesto”. (Note: I have not completed the book yet; you’ll be first in line).
Without further ado, the correct answer is …. A, B, and C!
I’m so sorry — I put suspicious digital marketing jargon into two of the correct answers, to trick you into eliminating them. A and B sound like laborious sales copy, but they are things we want to do.
But any time you go to the market, to do marketing, you are doing C. And that’s the point: marketing is selling. We divide the work of the so-called marketer and the salesperson into two for logistical reasons, not functional reasons.
Our function in going to the market, in delighting with customer experience, and in personalizing our pitch with technology, is to sell.