Marketing folks run out of gas.
Brands get stale. Businesses need a jump start. Companies require a catalyst to get their motors running. How can you put fuel in your marketing engines to motivate your team?
Brands get stale. Businesses need a jump start. Companies require a catalyst to get their motors running. How can you put fuel in your marketing engines to motivate your team?
Sometimes when you have worked at a business for a while, someone has to figure out, as Emeril would say, how to “kick It up a notch”.
Fuel is not necessarily more money. It is something that helps ignite passion and connection.
For a non-profit brand, fresh fuel can help grow revenue through re-motivating a fundraising team. Or fuel can re-ignite interest by a for-profit organization by getting them charged up by working with a new partner. Fuel can be like a magic elixir that helps magnetically pull the team’s attention in one direction. The end result is that fresh fuel gets everyone focused with a new passion, persistence and purpose.
Fuel is not necessarily more money. It is something that helps ignite passion and connection.
For a non-profit brand, fresh fuel can help grow revenue through re-motivating a fundraising team. Or fuel can re-ignite interest by a for-profit organization by getting them charged up by working with a new partner. Fuel can be like a magic elixir that helps magnetically pull the team’s attention in one direction. The end result is that fresh fuel gets everyone focused with a new passion, persistence and purpose.
Get Away and Get Connected
I think the best way to do this is to take a day or two and get far away from your daily routine. Leave the iPhones behind and find a place where you can get a small group together to remind everyone what business you are in. It is so easy to think that your job is creating social media content or creating a live event. Some marketing professionals get so deeply engaged in their brands that their world becomes a category of products being marketed to a segment within an industry. It is so helpful to get away from the words and get connected with the community.
Marketing folks AREN’T in the business of making stuff or doing projects. Get away from the to do list. Forget the simplistic transactional nature of work.
Wake up! You ARE in the business of connecting with the stories people want to tell and share and the authentic needs of your community.
That community could be Harley Davidson enthusiast, unoaked chardonnay wine lovers or people trying to band together to reduce crime in a small inner city neighborhood. How can you sharpen your teams intensity that gets dulled by the daily doldrums of work because you get disconnected from your true mission? I suggest that you get away and refresh everyone’s memory so your team remembers why you are doing what you are doing at the deepest level.
You may sell things but your marketing team members are they part of a bigger and more important role? Maybe you are really selling ambition, or inspiration or dreams. Helping your team members get reconnected is like plugging in your laptop when the battery is drained. You add energy and make important connections bringing power and motivation toward you and the people charge with making things happen.
Go out in the field where your community lives and breathes and get reconnected. Spend time together. Leave the inbox behind and get energized by the human beings you are supporting, serving or sharing stories with through your brand.
Snapping Into An Experience
I recall many years ago George Stewart, the senior brand manager who worked on the Slim Jim brand under my supervision, took the team to a skate park. He wanted us to experience the pure madness and intensity of those we were trying to reach through our marketing. We skated with them, fell on our backsides in front of them but most importantly, we breathed in the same air. We listened to their incredibly loud booming music. It was a chance to remind ourselves that we weren’t selling Slim Jim’s. We were selling the exhilaration of being a young irreverent teenager who needed an antidote for boredom.
You may sell things but your marketing team members are they part of a bigger and more important role? Maybe you are really selling ambition, or inspiration or dreams. Helping your team members get reconnected is like plugging in your laptop when the battery is drained. You add energy and make important connections bringing power and motivation toward you and the people charge with making things happen.
Go out in the field where your community lives and breathes and get reconnected. Spend time together. Leave the inbox behind and get energized by the human beings you are supporting, serving or sharing stories with through your brand.
Snapping Into An Experience
I recall many years ago George Stewart, the senior brand manager who worked on the Slim Jim brand under my supervision, took the team to a skate park. He wanted us to experience the pure madness and intensity of those we were trying to reach through our marketing. We skated with them, fell on our backsides in front of them but most importantly, we breathed in the same air. We listened to their incredibly loud booming music. It was a chance to remind ourselves that we weren’t selling Slim Jim’s. We were selling the exhilaration of being a young irreverent teenager who needed an antidote for boredom.
Stop and Remember
Who are you serving? What stories do they tell their friends in need of your products, services and solutions? What really motivates this community to share with their friends? How are you facilitating their story telling? What could you do differently or, what is a waste of your organizations time?
Immerse the Team
It is so easy to forget why you do email marketing, direct mail or put on marketing events. We get lost in the tactics and detached from the essence of our work. When we do connect those dots, we allow energy to flow in the organization and you can sense the difference.
Bring a customer or two for an afternoon to get to know them. Ask them to tell you why they do what they do. Share a meal. Share an experience. See the world from their point of view.
Visit a rally or meeting filled with passionate customers/community members so that you can shower in their electrifying intensity. Participate. Help. Be actively part of their world and watch and listen to their pain points, needs and desires. Meet the beneficiaries of the work you do as a company so you can see a bigger picture not just your small hub in the spoke.
Bring a customer or two for an afternoon to get to know them. Ask them to tell you why they do what they do. Share a meal. Share an experience. See the world from their point of view.
Visit a rally or meeting filled with passionate customers/community members so that you can shower in their electrifying intensity. Participate. Help. Be actively part of their world and watch and listen to their pain points, needs and desires. Meet the beneficiaries of the work you do as a company so you can see a bigger picture not just your small hub in the spoke.
Fuel For Thought
Some might think that you should just focus on selling more stuff. They may see the path to victory in sales. The truth is that your competitors are fighting that same fight to sell more products.
What you can do differently is how you connect, how you care and the difference you can make in someones life. Go ahead and stand closer to the flame so you can spark a few dreams. Fill up your tank.
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Help me support a great organization called: Charity: Water. Check out the work they do here. I coach and advise marketing folks and your fee is donated to this great cause. If you’d like to pick my marketing brain about your story, you can set up a call through Clarity at this link.
100% of my fee is donated to Charity Water. Thirsty?
100% of my fee is donated to Charity Water. Thirsty?
