Why The Best Marketers Should Know Nothing About Your Industry

Written on 29/04/2019.

It may come as a complete surprise to you, but marketing agencies should know absolutely nothing about your industry.

Sure, it doesn’t quite make sense – but we’ll get to the point.

Infact, one of the most common questions we get asked by potential clients is “how can you successfully market our business.. do you even know anything about our industry?”

And the truth is, we shouldn’t – there is more to crafting a successful marketing campaign than having a PhD in every given field.

The best marketers are those who value communication that speaks into the depths of the consumer far more than jargon-loaded-industry-talk that they can’t comprehend.

The most effective marketing campaigns are those that are strategised and conducted purely from the consumers’ point of view; thriving to understand their buying psychology on the deepest level.

As business owners, you are so close to our products and services that when it comes to explaining them, people have no idea what you’re talking about. We’re sorry to break it to you, but the same applies to “industry-specific” marketers.

Albert Einstein puts it best: “If you can’t explain it to a 6 year old, you don’t understand it yourself.”

The moment you start using inside language and industry talk, you are losing business. Successful marketing is not a question of how well your industry is communicated; it’s understanding of why people buy, knowing how to speak into their pain points, and crafting marketing messages in a way that evokes a compelling response.

Here’s three reasons why your next marketer should be independent to your industry:

#1 – They’re not attached to the industry or your business

Marketers that know how to communicate to the consumer in a clear and compelling way are far more likely to succeed in your marketing than those who merely understand what you want to communicate.

Sure, you’re passionate about your business, your experience and your accolades; you’re confident in your products or services; and you hold yourself to the highest standard; and only an industry-specific marketer can effectively communicate what you want your customers to hear.

But here lies your problem: Customer’s don’t care.

Customers come to you because they have an internal problem or struggle that they want to solve, and expect you to guide them through to a solution. If they could solve it on their own, you wouldn’t hear from them.

Therefore, your marketing needs to speak less about you, and far more to your customer.

Industry-specific marketers get caught in the trap of industry fluff, and fail to understand your business from a customers point of view. They know everything there is to know about your industry, and can say all the right things that impress you, but communicates absolutely nothing the customer can understand.

Marketers that are independent to your industry know as much about your industry as your customers do; and with this limited knowledge, are far more likely to communicate your message in a way that customers will actually understand.

If you leave your customers in the fog of technical language and how your industry works, they never do business with you.

If you confuse, you’ll lose.

#2 – Your marketing will be different to your competitors

One of the biggest problems when it comes to engaging an industry-specific marketer, is that their clients are your competitors.

If you really think about it, the very strategies and approaches that are implemented to your marketing will be the exactly the same that’s applied to your competitors. If your marketing is a clone of your competitors, you’re never going to stand out.

Let’s be honest.. no one wants a copy-cat.

When you engage industry specifics marketers, that’s exactly what you’re going to get. Same templates, same layout, same images, same keywords… Perhaps just different colours.

Cookie-cutter marketing campaigns just don’t work in the 21st century.

You need a marketer who will come into your industry with a fresh set of eyes, using the same strategic mindset that has delivered results for other industries, not knowing a single thing about them.

Marketing agencies who aren’t consumed by your industry are able to bring their own creativity, think outside the box, and propose big ideas to develop marketing campaigns that are different, and will engage customers.

It’s important to stand out from the crowd. Duplicated, tested and proven marketing campaigns just don’t work when your competitors are using them.

#3 – Understanding of your customers

The best marketers don’t just know what customers want, but what they really want.

If you run a legal practice, your customers don’t just want someone to represent them in court. What they really want, is to walk away from the courtroom with a smile on their face, problem-free!

Successful marketing campaigns attempt to gain an understanding of what customers really want by identifying their pain points, and crafting marketing messages that speak solutions into these problems with empathy.

Industry-specific markers do one thing very well: They sell you as a hero.

Bad news is, customers aren’t looking for a hero. They’re looking for a guide, and they want you to empower them to be the hero. You can read more about this in this blog.

Effective marketing campaigns are built around one key principle: Understanding why customers buy, and how to convince them to buy.

Put simply, marketing is designed to bridge the gap between you and your customers by offering solutions to their problems. We hate to say it, but industry-specific marketing companies know too much about your field, and too little about your customers.

If your customers were sitting on a sale of 1 to 10, and the measure was the understanding of your products and services, you would sit at a 10, and your customers would sit at a 1. Therefore, your marketing needs to come down to a level 1 to meet your customers.

Stop throwing thousands of dollars on marketing that doesn’t engage customers and has little ROI. You deserve marketing campaigns that generate leads and sales, as a result of raving customers that understand your marketing messages.

Every month, we meet many business owners in our Marketing Makeover Workshop eager to learn the kind of messaging that compels customers into a purchasing decision.