by Nikki Devereux, Director of Account Management
Our next zodiac sign is Capricorn: birthdays between December 22 – January 19.
Capricorn is an earth sign with the strengths of responsibility and discipline. A couple of Capricon’s weaknesses are speaking in a condescending manner and being a know-it-all. We’ll explore ways these positive and negative traits can be applied or avoided in marketing and business practices.
Responsibility in Marketing
One of the tenets of marketing is that you are speaking to an audience of some kind or another. When you have this type of reach, the message you send will affect many lives, some of them who haven’t even seen your message. It goes without saying that you have a certain amount of responsibility to communicate a message that does no harm. Communicating honestly and with integrity will ensure that you are publishing a responsible message to your audience. Always consider the consequences of your campaigns and messaging.
Discipline in Marketing
Discipline comes in many forms and can be applied to so many aspects of business and marketing. We are going to focus on just a couple, including discipline in file organization and discipline in checking your work.
Discipline in file organization, you ask? YES! This seems like one of those obvious working items that no one even needs to think about. It is this assumption that creates filing and organization disasters. Even the most well-meaning, organized person can end up on a dark path of procrastination and neglect in filing, which leads to the dissolution of your filing system.
Start a system with intention and strategy and stick to it. In marketing, this is important because you will have a lot of creative files, including design, video and written content. It all needs to stay organized so you can access it when someone needs it.
We still receive calls from clients that we did creative work for a decade ago. They are requesting design files that were misplaced or accidentally deleted. Good thing we’re organized. Part of our service is to make sure that our file system is backed up by the cloud and easy to access.
Checking your work requires patience and discipline as well. This applies not only to project work, but emails you are sending to your colleagues and clients. Review what you’ve written once or twice for punctuation, spelling, and any other errors. People notice when you send something with spelling errors, no punctuation, or no closing. This could be seen as a reflection of your work and/or work ethic. As far as checking your creative work on projects, this should simply be part of your workflow.
Avoid: Condescension in Marketing
This one is so obvious that I almost didn’t include it, but I thought it worthwhile mentioning. Condescension can be an insidious act, one that you don’t even know that you’re committing. Be careful with your marketing messaging; ensure that you are not alienating a group of people with subtle condescension or other offensive content that was not intended to be received that way. We live in a diverse world with people of many different backgrounds—be sensitive and thoughtful with your messaging to avoid losing segments of your audience.
Avoid: Being a Know-it-All
No one likes a know-it-all. But, aside from being unlikable by virtue of thinking they know everything, know-it-alls keep themselves from learning new things and skills. In marketing, this can be detrimental, if not a downright fatal mistake. Learning something new is key to understanding your industry, business and goals. If you resist learning new information because you’re a know-it-all, you are missing out on all that knowledge that can help elevate your marketing campaigns to new levels. This goes for your clients as well. There is no better way to get to know your client and their industry than listening and learning.
Have you ever experienced any of the above traits in your marketing campaigns or business? We’d love to hear your stories, the good, the bad, and the ugly!
