Last month, I shared some of our experience gathering feedback on a new lead magnet we’ve created for ourselves. The lesson I shared in that article about defining in detail who we want to reach is the most critical, but here’s something else we realized that you may find as valuable as we did.
You Are Not the Client
Your experience and expertise are a valuable guide, and the gut instinct they inform should not be dismissed. Be wary, though, of your perspective. It can lead you astray.
If you are too intent on how you are responding to or interpreting your marketing, you are ignoring the differences between yourself and your prospects. (Unless, of course, you are, say, a small business marketer who’s marketing to other small business marketers …) 
This can create problems in everything from graphic design choices to social media platforms to your messaging and offer. Make sure you are viewing your own marketing from the audience’s perspective make sure it will connect and resonate.
You Are Too Close to the Problem
A corollary to the “you are not the client” axiom is also a matter of perspective.
Many of us are professional perspective offerers. It’s not just our experience and expertise that make our input valuable, it’s the additional set of eyes (and minds) through which we see a marketing problem and the fact that our perspective is necessarily different than our clients’. This is especially true when our clients are not marketers but are manufacturers or real estate professionals or social services providers.
Given how often you’ve seen your fresh perspective bring real value to tackling a marketing challenge, the simple question to ask yourself is, What makes you think you’re immune from that universal truth?
This might not always apply, of course. Working with a new client in an unfamiliar industry would probably give you a pretty fresh set of eyes. Outside of exceptions like that, getting outside perspective will help you avoid falling into familiar patterns and habits without even thinking about it.
It would be silly of me to suggest that you need to bring in an outside marketing team, particularly if you’re an agency or consulting working on client engagements. But at the very least I would suggest seeking the opinions of trusted colleagues or client team members in a range of roles.
Our lead magnet project was large enough that we sought the input of our outside colleagues so we could get it right, but the same rules should apply to just about all of our marketing efforts, and yours, no matter the size.
No, you don’t have to run every social media post past a focus group. (Please. Don’t do that.) But the overall plan that your social posts fit into should be vetted by an internal team that includes people outside of your marketing department. Take your own advice and seek outside perspective. Your marketing results will thank you.
Occasional large-scale changes can re-invigorate a marketing plan that’s beginning to falter and can provide a blast of inspiration that ripples out through the rest of your marketing.
By the way, if you’re interested in hearing some of my podcast and radio appearances, you’ll find a few of them listed on the Andigo website.
Photo by Atharva Dharmadhikari on Unsplash
