A good marketer focuses on the market, not marketing.
Marketing is something you do to your targets. It’s a unilateral attack. The framing and phrasing are all wrong. People don’t want to be marketed to.
Your market is something you’re a part of. If you Live-In-Market you never have to Go-To-Market. Your job is to participate in and create value with and for the individuals and companies in your market. To join, start, encourage, highlight, and enhance conversations that create value for the members of the ecosystem.
Call it content, call it community, call it events, call it whatever you want. At the end of the day, it’s about being a part of your market, serving it, and participating in conversations that add value.
When you do, you don’t need to market products at people. You don’t need to cram them into a funnel. When they have problems you can solve, they’ll come to you for help.
And when they do and you help them, that’s called sales.
This is why my title at PartnerHacker is Chief Market Officer. I don’t make a big deal about titles, and this may seem silly or cheesy, but words are powerful framing devices and this variation on CMO is a reminder for me of what my job is.
Not marketing, but taking care of the market.