Why All Marketers Should Be Growth Marketing
As new channels emerge and old(er) ones evolve, good ol’ MarketerSpeak always follows suit and lots of new lingo starts flying about.
Technology has only facilitated this widening of vocabulary — like the ever-popular notion of “growth marketing,” mostly attributed to startup activity back in 2010.
While, new words do initially help frame emerging strategies and tactics for marketing, all too often, they become just empty buzz words (read: synonyms or euphemisms for existing approaches or ideas).
I recently came across a fantastic article on ‘growth marketing’ that Vasil Azarov sent me, and it got me thinking.
“Growth marketing isn’t just a startup thing. Growth marketing is a marketing thing.” ~Vasil Azarov, Startup Socials
I couldn’t agree more.
While “adjectival prefixtures” (sure, let’s call them that) to the word marketing do reveal various aspects and functions of our trade and help to frame our goals and activities, such jargoned nomenclature sometimes dilutes the main purpose of what we set out to do. It’s easy to say “growth” but forget what it actually means.
Whether we’re doing inbound, referral, influencer, brand, awareness, tactical, product, sales, content, -whatever- marketing, we should all keep our eye on growth.
“If you are doing marketing and you are not aligned with the growth in your company, then you are probably not doing your job.” ~Hiten Shah, Quick Sprout
“Growth marketing” — still in its first decade of usage — may have a bit of stigma attached to it outside the startup space. It may get associated with cold hard selling, disingenuous hook-and-baits, telemarketing and SPAM, algorithm hacks, and “me me me” promotions that don’t usually appear to be in the interest of the customer.
Modern marketers are more sophisticated than that — but only as sophisticated as consumers become. We may be more concerned with “brand” and creative (than sales, for instance), but in the digital space, strategic optimization tactics and smart bidding, targetting, and copywriting are key to getting our messages across effectively (and efficiently). And that’s true whether we’ve got a lot of brand equity behind us not.
We’re also in the business of sales.
If you’re not aligned with the vision of your company and invested in its growth (i.e. sales in some regard, or at least ROI), what are you doing? You’re a MARKETer. Our work should be all about finding success in the market by serving the market. If you can’t get those two to align, get out — or your business will suffer.
I really don’t think that we are doing our best job unless we believe in what we’re doing and believe there is room for growth.
This goes for us, too.
As Vasil says…
…Like with most business sea changes, you’re either onboard or you’re overboard. It’s just a matter of time.
Re-published at https://www.linkedin.com on May 17, 2017.
