The day I realised I need to change my approach in Marketing... *Watch on your Phone.
Published 2020-08-21
But, specifically within the SMMA world, what frustrates me the most is the way the business model comes across and how it's pitched to all these young aspiring marketers (including myself). To me, it's important to state the difference between what an advertising agency is and a marketing agency… Cause at the end of the day, the majority of these SMMA courses are purely focused on the advertising side of things and not necessarily on BRAND, strategy or creative.
Instead of going in-depth, I'm just going to list down some of the key elements, which all of the courses I've seen over the last couple of years have in common:
*They spend the majority of the time explaining the benefits of running an SMMA, rather than show HOW to run an agency or on their experience with running one (Like, I would love to know about the onboarding processes, HR, how they write their copies etc…)
*The focus point is on figures: 1) how many clients you can get. 2) How much profit you make a month to a year. - The whole "zero to Six-Figures" thingy…
*Instead of being told how YOU could be doing the work better, you are told to get contractors to do the work for you and you should instead invest your time in getting and closing clients (aka. You end up being a salesperson, no?)
*There is only around 10% info on how to manage the creative, both from the clients perspective and for internal use.
*The advice is limited with regards to how to market yourself as an agency in a creative and innovative way… It can't be true that funnels and cold-calls are the only way to put yourself out there.
*The 14-day free trials are just a way to get you into their funnel, show you some stuff which makes you think "Ey I got the recipe for success. But I just need one more thing", which they make you pay for. To this is bad intend, unless it's actually valuable.
Some of these gurus discourage the effort in preparing your processes prior to reaching out to brands, as they want you to go out there and just get clients… But hey, if you then get a client and your process sucks, you are not going to be able to help that client long term.
All you end up having in mind is a checklist that you need to tick off before going out and reaching out to everyone, promising gold and diamonds without the necessary experience to back it up. This can then causes collateral damage to certain businesses, which then ultimately ruins the reputation of SMMA'S overall… Yes, sometimes when we reach out to clients I fell like Imm the new boyfriend who's trying to cover up for the fuck-up of the ex if you know what I mean.
All in all, I am stunned to discover how many of these gurus who sell you these courses, never focus on how we, as marketers, are all in it together. Why is it that I feel like I'm a salesperson trying to win more clients than my competitors aka. Race to the bottom.
In order to develop a community of powerful marketers, I would much more prefer these gurus/courses to start off by talking about the purpose of our service, why we do what we do, and how powerful marketing can be (beyond ROARS, ROI AND LTV) to make change happen.
Also, why don't they share the work and thoughts of the great leaders, innovators and disrupters of the industry? I mean, how is it that Seth Godin, Gary Vee, Simon Sinek and … who consistently put out their bests advice online for free never get credited?
I don't know how to say it in any other way: IT'S FREE!!!!
If you haven't figured out already, I'm eager to be the sheep within this group of marketers. I am extremely passionate about the idea of giving it all for free and then leveraging the fact that those who use it, use it successfully.
Now, I can't take the full credit for wanting to do this. Hence why I want to share this list of links/people, which in my opinion can help you understand the true meaning of marketing, how it works and how you can take that advice and go do your thing…again for free!
The Smart Agency Podcast: open.spotify.com/show/0FiKuRTpkJ7OraCJBUIlr9?si=2U…
Gary Vee (You know it already): youtube.com/user/GaryVaynerchuk
Seth Godin: seths.blog/
Simon Sinek: youtube.com/user/SimonSinek
HubSpot Blog: blog.hubspot.com/
Vogue Business: www.voguebusiness.com/
TrusySocial on IG: www.instagram.com/trusysocial/
Just TikTok Marketing and you'll see
And the list continues…!
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Thank you for your attention. It goes without saying that it means the absolute world to me. I hope this has helped or will help you in even the slightest bit and if it did/does, please feel free to share it with a friend.