Why aren’t you investing in training for your marketers? Blurb from me, Elaine on why owners and directors are harming their company and how to stop it!
You only know what you only know. Yesterday the team and I went through storybrand BrandScript, a fabulous exercise we deliver with our clients and on ourselves. The StoryBrand BrandScript gives us a tool to clarify the messaging of a brand, product, service, or organisation, which then empowers us to create marketing materials that are unique to the product or business.
The exercise highlighted the key problems owners and marketers are facing – at both survey firms and geospatial equipment OEMs and resellers.
(If you haven’t done one, talk to us – it’s an amazing way to discover what makes your business different. And that can help you build marketing that resonates.)
What I learned – although it came out of our StoryBrand exercise – has less to do with StoryBrand and more to do with our Geospatial Marketing Academy. Here’s the tale:
One of our clients is the director at an OEM. One of the underlying problems he and his team have is their frustration with their marketer.
Why are they frustrated with the marketer they’ve hired? They think the marketer should know their shit! Why should he spend more money on training when it already costs £30k GBP/ $60K USD for their salary? Surely this marketer should already know how to produce the right marketing materials to drive leads and sales!
You see, they’re considering purchasing a license to GMA to guide the marketer in their role. The director is thinking to himself, “I shouldn’t be paying for a marketer to learn marketing! They should know this already!” So in his mind, it’s not worth the investment.
On the contrary, the marketing manager may be keen to enrol in GMA to further their education, but they’re (rightly) worried to ask for the budget.
The conundrum here is two-fold. The director is missing something vital: hiring a marketing person from outside the industry means they don’t have specific industry knowledge. They don’t know the audience or the terminology, so they certainly don’t know what resonates or works! In GMA, we teach that through case studies.
And if the marketer comes from within the industry, are they qualified or savvy enough to generate organic leads from content marketing? Do they have the writing or social media skills to parlay their industry knowledge into shareable content?
The Geospatial Marketing Academy was built because I found myself delivering workshops over and over again in lockdown. There was an “A-ha!” moment when I realised how many people would benefit from this specialised marketing knowledge. It wouldn’t just benefit directors of equipment sellers – it could also help folks like owners of smaller survey businesses and those tasked with the marketing who may or may not have experience.
Bottom line: If you want better marketing for your business, whether you’ve hired from within the industry or externally (or if you’ve tasked your admin with marketing) invest in training when it’s needed.