Zodiac Marketer: Aries

Our next zodiac sign is Aries: birthdays between March 21 – April 19.

Aries is a fire sign with the following strengths: courage, determination, confidence, enthusiasm, optimism, honesty and passion. As with Pisces, there are plenty of Aries traits that apply directly to marketing. We’ll also take a look at Aries’ weaknesses: impatience, moodiness, short temperament, impulsive and aggressive. Some of these are definite no-no’s in marketing and bad for business as a whole.

Courage in Marketing

Some of the best advertisements and marketing campaigns are incredibly bold and, quite frankly, take a lot of courage to execute. Enter an agency brainstorming session and you may hear some off the wall ideas being tossed around. Sometimes it’s the gutsiest, most implausible idea that ends up being the winner! As a creative, you have to be willing to push the envelope and try something new to stand out from the crowd.

Confidence in Marketing

Confidence is essential in any profession, but in marketing—this ever-changing industry with state-of-the-art technologies, popular culture, and creative trends—you have to exercise extra confidence in your campaigns and business choices in general. One of the best ways to maintain confidence in the marketing world is to educate yourself. Staying on top of creative and technology trends, or knowing about them, is a step in the right direction. Finding a great application or software that you tested and decided to fully integrate into your workflow is even better. You can use and test technologies to be able to recommend these beneficial products to your audience, your clients, and your colleagues. This positions you as a cutting-edge industry leader.

At the same time, having confidence in the creative aspect of your work is essential. When a business is considering hiring a marketing agency or when you are pitching a new idea for a campaign to your vice president, you want to have confidence in your idea and your ability to execute that idea. If you don’t, there are a dozen others who know their design ability is incredible and worthy. If you want someone to have enough confidence in your work to hire you, you first must demonstrate confidence.

Enthusiasm in Marketing

It’s difficult to market a product that you don’t feel connected to at least in some way. Enthusiasm for what you’re selling, whether it’s advertising or marketing, gives an authenticity to the work you do—without it, your copy may feel forced, the creative may wilt, and your interaction with the client or audience will feel fake. And, if you can be passionate about what you’re marketing, even better—you’re sure to create amazing campaigns that excite your audience.

Avoid: Impatience in Marketing

As the first sign of the zodiac, Aries often have a tendency to be impulsive and rush out to be first. However, great design doesn’t happen overnight and neither does great copywriting, or really, any element of marketing. Of course, there’s the occasional fluke where you get that winning idea in the shower, but don’t bank on those ideas.

A good example is website design and development, which can be an incredibly heavy workload, even when you stay organized and precise. Patience is key during a process of this magnitude, and not just for the creators. You have to learn how to manage the expectations of your stakeholders, so they fully understand the amount of time you need to do your best work for them. It’s ok to compress a timeline here and there, but be realistic about your deadlines and don’t let an impatient person rush you. Rushing a set of design mockups into development is not going to produce great work, and you may end up revisiting the rushed piece and spending more time and money in the long run anyway.

Avoid: Moodiness in Marketing

This one applies to nearly every aspect of life, but it’s especially true in the marketing world where you may be dealing with tight deadlines, budgets, and stakeholders. We know that being moody in business is taboo. Sometimes personality matches between teammates, employees, clients and vendors are as important as the work itself.

Moodiness also hampers productivity and morale. So, if you or your colleagues have a stressful project load with tight deadlines and budgets, having a moody co-worker adds more unnecessary stress. Check your emotional status and leave the mood swings at home.

We hope that you can take some of the above recommendations and apply them to your business or marketing plan. Stay tuned for the next zodiac sign, headstrong Taurus!