I had the honor of presenting some ideas on the topic “How to find customers through new media” at EADIM’s first week of training in Brussels last week. EADIM (European Academy for Direct and Interactive Marketing) was founded by Drayton Bird. Yes - that’s right. Advertising legend the late David Ogilvy said he (Drayton Bird) “knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world. His book about it is pure gold. His speeches are not only informative, but hilariously funny.”
I only spent 2 days in Brussels. But I learned a lot. And a lot more than I expected. And I am going to share what I learned. For now, I am going to sum it all up in 5 important learnings. These learnings are important IF you really want to get ahead in the game of marketing.

To further your career in marketing, you need to become a success at your present marketing job. Once succcessful, you will find yourself in a situation where better jobs will be thrown at you. That is - if you don’t decide to become self-employed in the meantime.

When time allows, I will follow up with more learnings.

But. First things first. Please do forgive my grammatical mistakes. I have only 30 minutes to write this article. So I am bound to make heeps of mistakes. Please do not shoot me.

5 learnings all marketers need to know about career development

1. Know thy audience
I have seen it again and again. Marketers “forget” to define the audience they want to engage and to stay focused on their target market. Most companies have not written a customer strategy - many companies don’t even know what it is. And what is worse; more often than not, we seem to “forget” to care about the needs, wants, dreams, problems and pains of our target group(s).  In other words, we all know the learning of the famous Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard - yet we do not apply his wisdom.

In fact in Brussels I too made that terrible mistake. I prepared a presentation targeted at marketing people with 1-3 years experience. An hour later I knew that I should have prepared at presentation relevant to very smart and quite experienced marketing professionals. Because it turned out that EADIM students are just that. They are professionals who have made a smart move by joining EADIM with an objective to become even smarter.

I won’t make that mistake again. Ever.

2. The packaging has changed - but everything is still the same
Having been part of the internet marketing hype for some 12-14 years, I have often heard selfproclaimed internet marketing specialist utter statements such as “old school marketers don’t know jack-all about internet marketing”. And I am ashamed to admit, that I have often agreed with them.

Why?

Because sometimes I tend to avoid confronation. But if you ask EADIM teachers such as Drayton Bird, Malcolm Auld, Professor Srikumar S. Rao and others, they will tell you that nothing has changed. Becoming a succcesful internet marketing person requires a thorough understanding of direct marketing and the very basic principles that have proven themselves for decades.  Drayton Bird claims that even todays most successful internet marketers all consider one particular book (written many, many years ago) their Bible.

Interestingly, if you listen to the wise words of Marshall McLuhan, you will understand that many things have not changed, eventhough we would like to think so.

3. Continued education is the only guarantee that you will improve your results
It is true. And I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t been following that very important principle. You see, I got to a point many years ago where I thought I knew it all. And I know many others whom came to the same conclusion based on their seniority, status and what not.
But it is - of course -all wrong. If you want to continually improve your game, you need to practice. Well, we all do really. And practicing equals studying. Reading books, articles, white papers. Attending well produced seminars, conference, webinars. The fact of the matter is that you can’t know it all. You can’t test anything and everything yourself. That is the reason it is smart to let others inspire you. Awfully simple, isn’t it. Yet - why have so many of us forgotten to continually be open to new knowledge, ideas and innovations?

4. Writing is essential to anybody in marketing
My wife (who is a lot smarter than me) have often told me “Michael, read more. Reading will improve your writing skills”. Fact is, I love writing. I am not very good at it, but I still love it. According to Drayton Bird (who is a writer himself) - as a marketer you are at a great advantage if you are - or become - a good writer. And it makes perfectly sense, doesn’t it?
More than 20 years ago, I secured one of my first advertising clients (Fagor) because the CEO thought I was a good copy writer. But I wasn’t, I am sure. I wrote the copy for a brochure promoting some inferior washing machine only because no one else had the time. But he insisted. And while he debated heavily about every offer we made for various advertising/agency services, he paid handsomely for my copy writing.
I recommend reading Drayton Bird’s bestselling book Commonsense Direct & Interactive Marketing to learn what you can gain from becoming a better writer.

5. Testing is still friggin’ important
I live in a small country. Small countries are at a great disadvantage when it comes to testing. Nevertheless. Testing is more important than ever. So why don’t we prioritize testing. Lack of time? Lack of budget? Insufficient knowledge about testing principles?
I think it’s all of the above, or no less than a combination.

It is difficult to excel in marketing, if you do not apply testing relentlessly. And if you think about it, I think you will agree. The cost of testing is likely to be a mere fraction of your total investment in any given marketing effort. No matter your marketing instrumentation, testing will enable you to improve your Return on Marketing Investment.

Of course you knew all that, didn’t you?

Well, I thought I did too. Yet, in Brussels last week I made all these mistakes while addressing an exclusive audience of smart EADIM students from some 10-12 countries. People who travelled from far away places to learn more about direct and interactive marketing from a faculty including numerious highly respected marketing gurus.

Now I know I need to get back in the game, but differently this time. So I hereby declare to abide by these rules:

1. I want to understand my target group and their needs before doing anything else. If I do not understand whom they are, and what they need, how will I be able to effectively convince them?
2. I am going to trust what others have learned before me; the basic principles of direct marketing still apply even if the media or medium is new.
3. I will continually educate myself by reading books, articles, attending seminars, conferences and such.
4. Even if I am awfully bad at it, I am going to force myself to write more, blog more, comment more on other peoples thoughts and ideas.
5. I am not God. Therefore I need to test my marketing in order to decide which approach will work best.