Not everyone hears things that you do. We think sounds or voices are something that anyone with the ability to hear can hear but it turns out, people only hear what they want to hear.

If we don’t want to think about something, we block it out. We avoid it. We change the story in our mind to something we desire.

Then a marketing voice is not something we hear, it’s something we create in our head.

People have a filter in their mind. As soon as a message hits their brain, it starts to bend to the different stories and paradigms of the receiver.

All the “noise” out there is just people filtering what they want to hear. Peoples filters are getting stronger but it doesn’t mean that they don’t want to listen to nothing. Filtering out noise is what creates focus on the things that matter to that customer.

As marketers we, seek to understand what they filter out and what they choose to receive, only then do we have a chance to change them.

There is typically a chasm between marketing and advertising.

Some company’s don’t even have a chasms – their lines are so blurred between advertising and marketing that they don’t even know what the difference is anymore.

But you need clarity and alignment in these two things to move forward.

Marketing is the change that your service or product makes and the experience that goes along with that.

Advertising is the voice of your marketing. It gets the word out over all the other noise with the goal of your brand being remembered in some way.

Even though these are two distinct processes, there needs to be alignment and unity between the two, it’s the only way for you to have a brand that stands the test of time. To many companies focus to much on marketing and are never seen and some spend much to much time on short term advertising campaigns, which causes the customer to care about their brand less in the lorn run.

You must look to gain clarity and alignment between then two.

It’s only then that you can have an actual marketing plan.

There are different types of ads and the more we understand the types – the better we can make the ad we are trying to make.

Some are introductory: introducing something new or updated with the goal of creating curiosity in the viewer.

Some are promotion based: Giving some type of offer to the client to get them to buy.

And some can be brand love based: Connecting with existing customers and reinforcing what the brand stands for to non-customers.

There are many more types and they are not set in stone but the more we can understand the types, the more clear we can be about the ad we are about to create.

In psychology, there is above and below what is called “the victim line”. That the opposite of living a fully vibrant life: one where you feel like you are in control and moving forward, is a life where you play the victim.

When you are speaking to customers it’s helpful to ask: Is this segment of customers more likely to have the identity of someone who believes they are living a fulling life (above the victim line) or an individual that feels that are a victim (below the victim line)? 

We all play the fulfilled person and the victim from time to time in our own lives and in different parts of it more often.

Once we understand that are customers do too, we have a better chance of speaking to them and meeting them where they are at.

Better yet, we have the opportunity to teach them that they are in control.

Marketers care so much about the customer. The experience. The service. The brand voice. They care about these things so much that they forget that this brand voice needs to be heard.

This is one of my greatest weaknesses of myself and for many people who are in marketing out there.

The weakness comes from not knowing if you are doing marketing or advertising. The weakness comes from not knowing the difference and when your’re not clear, friction happens.

Marketing is about connection and overall customer experience, while advertising is the voice of your brand. It what allows your marketing message to cut through the noise and actually be heard.

It took me a very long time to realize that those are two things are completely different activities and that they require two completely different skillets.

Advertising requires being remembered while marketing requires identification.

Without some type of force or injection of energy, you can’t convince people to change.

The reason why information doesn’t work (example: We have a product that does this, come buy it. ), is because it doesn’t involve any tension that forces a person to change. To guide someone off their path that they have been going down for years requires tension.

Tension is what stops and make people think about their life. Sometimes they aren’t even thinking but rather tension sometimes is more of an emotional reaction for the customer than a thought process.

The reason why tension creates change is that people can’t sit with tension. It drives people crazy. If the tension is to much some people will try to run from the situation, some try to avoid it and others pretend it’s not there. However, at one point the customer has to resolve the tension to move forward to a change in their life. Once we create this tension as marketers, we also have the job of resolving tension for our customers.

Tension is what creates change and change leads to trust.

When I don’t know what I am writing – I just start to write. Like I am with this very post.

The thing is that, it really can go anywhere. You let the words control you for once.

When you just start writing, you start writing things that you never thought you could write.

It trains you to think on the spot. It trains you to write on command. It trains you to make “writers block” irrelevant.

Our greatest enemy sometimes can be the voice in our head tell us that we can’t write today.

But when we sit down and just write – we suddenly realize that it’s just a voice in our head and that we get to decide what the narrative is.

Marketers effectively have to connect with people – its part of the job.

Connection starts with relating to someone, which means seeing the other person.

To see them, you have to have empathy.

It’s the most underrated marketing trait but surely the most valuable one – yet no one tries to learn it.

Marketers are bad at mind games.

Mind games in the way of trying to out think the competition or sell anyone on their marketing efforts.

They are bad because most “marketers” start with what they like or what their nephew likes or what they think a group of people like.

They don’t start with empathy – they start with thinking they already have the answer.

They start writing, thinking they are giving their gift to the world, when really what was called for was to listen to the customer. To see them.

You want to avoid mind games as a marketer because changing a group of people doesn’t happen in your head – it happens in the real world.

As ad people, we usually start with goals that focus on the gaining of something:

Gain more market share.

Get more customers.

Reach more people.

What if our goal instead was not to have bad advertisements?

We would then see what makes an advertisement perform poorly:

Inauthentic and rushed creation.

Not interesting or helpful to the customer.

Boring, off brand and generally just garbage.

Marketers spend to much time on trying to gain more instead of trying to lose less with each ad they create.