Halloween is right around the corner. That means your friends and neighbors will be doing their best to scare you, prank you, and eventually offload a few pounds of sugar-filled candy on you.
Ultimately, the fear that surrounds October 31st is all fun and games. After Halloween, we all go back to our normal routine, and for marketing teams around the world, sometimes the more frightening challenge is waiting for them back at the office.
Today, there is a lot to be afraid of in the world of marketing. Google's algorithm controls your traffic and Facebook keeps forcing you to pay for reaching your own customers. And don't even get me started about Snapchat.
There is one marketing fear, however, that I see more often in my colleagues this year than ever before. Do you know what it is? The fear of the customer.
Customers are everything to marketers. From acquiring them to retaining them, it's why we exist and the aspect of the job we should love the most. But too often I see marketing teams hiding between sales, support, or product teams, afraid to interact directly with the customers who can teach them the most.
I understand why this might happen. Sometimes customers get angry, and other customers might be impossible to please. Still, that's no excuse to keep your distance.
Here's 3 ways you can conquer your fear and get closer to the people that matter most to your business.
Get help
It might be intimidating to talk to customers 1:1 the first few times. Good news, unless you are the CEO and the marketing guru, you probably have co-workers you can enlist to help. Befriend a sales manager or customer support rep. There are many benefits to this, and one is that you can begin to join customer calls with them. Allow yourself to sit and listen a few times before you jump in the deep end.
Set a goal
It's really easy to go through each day dealing with Google Analytics and Facebook stats without making it a priority to talk to customers. Unless you set a goal of interacting with X customers per week, you will not do it. This is the biggest mistake I see marketing teams make. They get so deep into their campaigns they lose touch with the customer. Set a goal to make customers a key part of each week.
Keep moving
You will probably upset a customer at least once this year. Get over it and keep moving. As marketing teams it's our job to keep customers happy, and you need to let go of your expectations for 100% win rate. Your goal is not to keep everyone happy, it's to keep moving and continue improving.
I have been doing marketing for the past ten years. There is very little that scares me anymore. After you go through the ups and downs of digital marketing campaigns, you realize it's not as much about how you perform as what you learn.
Marketing has become an iterative task. Sometimes you make mistakes and upset a few customers, but you learn from them and move on. It's definitely more of a marathon than a sprint.