Qualifying the Feedback

“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” — 1 John 4.1 [CSB]

“And the people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.” — Acts 17.11 [NLT]

A lot of creatives always advise other creatives on marketing but is the advice sound or it just sounds nice?

Are other creatives the right source for marketing advice?

On award shows, creatives always outsource their fashion taste and wear to fashion designers.

When printing their books, creatives look for professional typesetters and printers to print their books.

When communicating, they outsource the building of cellphone towers and cellphones to telecommunications companies and experts.

Curiously, when they are doing marketing, they take it upon themselves or outsource it to another creative who is also not a marketer.

I think there are 2 reasons for this:

1. People assume anyone can do marketing. Creatives take it further, they think marketing is only predicated on being creative. The reality is that marketing is a business science skill and approach that is incredibly hard. It needs a great dedication for you to understand it. For you not to conflate platform/tools with strategy. Also, it involves a lot of research and that research takes a lot of skill. Marketing is not advertising. Anyone can write an advert (I am not saying it’s going to convert) but not everyone is a marketer. You need the skill.
2. Other creatives tell you comforting lies. Traditionally, and from decades of research, the product is a core feature of any successful marketing. In other sectors, such as food and beverages, when the market is not responding to the product, they either improve the product or improve communicating the product; however, creatives usually tell each other that the audience is to be blamed for the poor reception of the product. You start to hear sentiments such as “we don’t support our own” or “be like the Jews, the Jews keep money in the community”.

So here is my unsolicited advice, when you need someone to do your marketing, look for a marketer, not a journalist, not a ‘media practitioner’, not a social media manager, but a marketer. A marketer is not someone with a marketing degree, but someone who studied marketing.

I think I will end here for today.

I hope to see you tomorrow!