Transparent Marketing: Marketing is not about programs; it is about relationships

Everyone, including marketing professionals, has experienced the misguided influx from marketing programs: emails, ads, direct mail, etc., that clearly weren’t focused on their needs. Everyone knows the feelings that go along with it: irritation, annoyance, intrusion.

Unfortunately, the more experienced marketers become, the harder it becomes to think like a consumer, to really put yourself in the customer’s shoes. We become blind to the intrusion and annoyance we can cause and focus on marketing programs at the expense of relationships with customers. This often leads to aggressive, off-putting messages — messages that don’t work.

In this video excerpt, Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute shares a call to action for all marketers: an understanding of consumers' most frustrating laments paired with a doctrine for how to write and communicate as a marketer to overcome our marketing blind spots.

People don’t buy from companies, from stores or from websites; people buy from people. Marketing is not about programs; it is about relationships.

— Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute

This excerpt comes from a session of the Communicating Value and Web Conversion graduate certificate program created by the University of Florida and MECLABS Institute.  The full session aims to teach students to write copy effectively, aligning messages with the customer thought sequence. In this quick excerpt, Flint McGlaughlin, CEO and Managing Director, MECLABS Institute, gives marketers a tool to remind us how customers experience marketing collateral and a look inside their thought process. A tool that shows us how we might inadvertently alienate consumers if we fail to craft copy with them in mind.  

McGlaughlin sheds light on the offensive way so many campaigns are delivered. But he also highlights the opportunities that arise when marketers successfully think about what it feels like to be a consumer. If we can accurately put ourselves in the minds of our customers, we can find ways to communicate with them and achieve a new level of marketing effectiveness.

This excerpt is part of Session 10 of MMC 5436 Messaging Methodologies and the Practice of Conversion Optimization course, part of our graduate certificate program offered through UF. 

Related Resources

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