Differentiate your Business: Anyone can be an Expert!

Digital Marketing is an industry where everything is changing every day and so-called experts, claiming to hold the magic keys to help your company unlock its digital potential, are everywhere. With all the “best practice” and “new trends” around, it feels like you simply cannot keep up.

As soon as you have an understanding of Facebook or Google's new algorithm it changes, not to mention video is the new big thing, but wait so is voice, and somehow every time you engage with an expert you just feel more confused and flustered than before.

So How do we solve these problems? In this article we look at why we are frustrated by self-proclaimed experts, the problems with best practice and how to overcome these issues and create flexible and successful long-term strategies.

What does it mean to be an Expert?

Today it is so easy for anyone to be an expert if they have a stable internet connection or a smartphone in their back pocket. Information is available almost freely and it takes two hours to complete an online course and learn almost anything.

Generally, Experts are people who have a great deal of knowledge  

However, with algorithms, consumers and industry tools changing almost daily it is hard to see how an individual can establish themselves as an expert in anyone of these digital realms. Moreover, establishing a strategy that will service a company well for a long period is something that is very difficult to guarantee.

The Problem with “Best Practice”?

Best Practice or industry standards have the same problems that chasing the trend has. It is reactionary and it is a generalisation and we do not want to deal in generalisations.

As a company we are looking you differentiate ourselves and stand out from the crowd to capture the attention of our consumers. We are looking to provide value to our customers that they cannot get from our competitors and we are looking to capture a substantial share of the market.

None of these goals are achievable when we are constantly reacting to the latest trend or attempting to implement the latest “best practice”. It is important to remember that best practice is based on historical results and is therefore a lagging indicator, meaning that industry changes today may have already rendered the “best practice” irrelevant. Best practice is also not based on your organisation and team and therefore these generalisations may highlight your team’s weaknesses and do more harm than good.

These problems with best practice don’t mean we need to ignore best practice, we can however use it as a starting point and adjust it to suit our team, situation and the changing environment, to extract the most value for our company.

Setting ourselves up for long term success?

The industry might be changing all around us and we might feel like we cannot keep up, but maybe it is time to take a step back, take a deep breath and take a different approach. What differentiates the real experts from those who chase trends and try to game the system with hacks and tricks that promise to get that much desired digital foothold but never seems to deliver?

Firstly, we need to understand our customer and our team. If we can’t explain the problem, we solve in an easy sentence, our customers won’t understand our solution. Also, if we do not know what makes our team different, what are their strengths and weaknesses, we won’t be able to leverage our team’s ability to provide our customers with a unique value proposition.

How do we do this, we ask the right questions to the right people. Anyone can learn how to use a new tool or social site; the real experts however will know how to investigate and guide their companies or customers in the right direction. How? By asking the right questions. Asking the right questions to and about our customers and team members will allow us to always make decisions understanding what it is that our customers want and expect and what our team can deliver and offer.    

Here are a couple of questions or steps that will set you on the right track:

What problem do we solve? What are we selling?

This is not as simple as saying we sell cellphones, a mattress or gardening services. The physical product or service here is less important than the problem your customer is trying to solve when paying for your product or service. Cellphones solve the connection problem, so your customer does not buy a cell phone but the ability to stay connected to loved ones or the world around them. A mattress gives a customer a good night’s sleep, so you are not selling a mattress but a good night’s sleep.

Who are our Superfans?

Here we identify the group of customers that love our products and services, are actively involved in our communities and reacts to our brand communication in a big way. Many companies chase reach and fail to get there, where if instead they focus on resonating with each of their their customers, the reach will follow. It is therefore important to understand what is resonating with our current Superfans and to replicate that with our other customers.

What are our constraints? Can we Expand?

Understanding what limitations are in place will help us make decisions that do not stretch our companies unbearably thin or overexposed. While risk taking is an important part of business, we need to make sure that the risks we take are within a range that we can stomach. If you are looking for something different, sometimes introducing more constraints may even lead to additional benefits.

Set Goals. What do we want to achieve?

Most companies know what Smart (S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Achievable, R-Realistic, T-Time-Bound) goals are and implement them throughout the organisation. However, when setting up our marketing strategy along with your Smart goals we must be careful that our team doesn’t get caught up with the numbers. Here we can use an Aspirational Identity or Goal to inspire change along with our traditional Smart goals. This Aspirational Goal would include what you want to accomplish and what behaviour needs to be encouraged to achieve that goal.

Conclusion

What we need to understand is that in an ever-changing market what sets us apart is not our technical skills or product knowledge, but rather our soft skills. A successful digital marketing strategy is about understanding the customer, understanding our team, knowing our constraints, and being able and willing to ask the correct questions. It is not and never has been about chasing the newest trends or being active on every platform out there.