There are only two types of marketers: experts and operators!

I have read an article published by Diao Ye before, "4A Advertising Company is Doomed", and the title surprised me: Why is there such a title again? Isn’t it true that old-fashioned jokes like stepping on 4A companies are still outdated?

But on second thought, the man behind this revival of the old tune is the famous Internet practical marketing pioneer Diao Ye, so there must be some unusual insights in the article.

I have summarized the key points in the article as follows:

"In the past, the workflow of enterprises was a one-way black box transmission. The core process was that the product department developed products - the marketing department packaged products - the channel department sold products, and other support departments took over this black box and passed it down continuously. Marketing people never participated in the creation of products.

In the future, if you no longer participate in defining products at the source, but instead take over black boxes one by one, brainstorm, refine selling points, and create packaging ideas, you will lose your job no matter what kind of high-level marketing master you are currently.

The once glorious 4A advertising companies will not be able to sell well as long as they are still selling advertising packaging and communication capabilities without intervening in the source to think.

Finally, I suggest that everyone stop being a marketer and become an excellent product person. ”

To be honest, after reading this article, I can probably understand why the popular emerging brands such as Diaoye Beef Brisket and Beaver House are only short-lived and cannot withstand the long-term test of the market:

The first is a common sense mistake: “marketing people never understand products and do not participate in product creation” ?

This sentence clearly shows that Diao Ye's marketing skills are still at a very superficial level and he has no idea what real marketing is. 4P is a basic combination of marketing strategies, but it actually puts product first. People like Shi Yuzhu, Zhong Shanshan, Lei Jun and others are all top marketing experts. Who dares to say that they never understand products or do not participate in product creation?

In addition, “4A companies can’t sell hot products nowadays, so marketing gurus will be eliminated”? This is a typical case of replacing the concept.

It is also a reflection of a lack of marketing knowledge and a narrow marketing vision, directly equating marketing agencies/marketers with 4A companies/advertisers; the basic principle of a market economy is to recognize professional division of labor, and in the chain of brand marketing, 4A companies still play a vital role in the long-term building of brands.

The entire marketing chain from product research and development to terminal sales is extremely complex, and different marketing companies play corresponding roles in each link of this chain. Under the current division of labor in the marketing industry, 4A advertising companies are more responsible for brand building and creative communication, while in the direct product sales link, there are other marketing agencies that are more focused on effect conversion to complete it.

Therefore, there are only two possibilities for Diaoye to publish such an article with such fanfare: either he has a narrow cognition and thinks that marketing is just a gimmick to package products; or he is just a pure clickbait. After all, attracting attention was also an important means for him to become the originator of catering internet celebrity back then.

Two career paths for marketers

As mentioned earlier, a complete marketing chain is complex and long. This chain includes multiple links such as market research, product development, pricing, promotion and publicity, channel sales, etc. Any link taken out alone is a section with certain professional barriers.

This complexity and professionalism means that marketers have two options for development:

The first is to delve deeply into a certain professional skill area and hone a specific technique to become an expert.

For example, the more common positions in Party B agencies include strategy, art, copywriting, creativity, media, and new media operations; the more common positions on Party A are various operations positions (user operations, event operations, channel operations, content operations, etc.), and product managers and programmers who develop marketing tools also belong to this category.

Experts are like craftsmen. They produce higher-quality works or results by constantly improving their skills, and ultimately the value they can generate per unit time becomes higher and higher.

The other type is someone who has some knowledge of every section but does not need to be an extremely proficient operator. They are more focused on the management, promotion, and control of marketing projects.

For example, the AE and project manager of Party B's advertising company, while the staff of Party A's brand marketing department mostly play the role of operators, because Party A's personnel need to control the progress of each link of the marketing project. It is obviously unrealistic to do everything by themselves. It is more about arranging the right people and the right agency to the corresponding positions, so as to complete the entire marketing project more efficiently and with higher quality.

Therefore, based on the differences in development direction, marketers can be generally divided into experts and operators. Experts develop vertically, focusing on constantly honing their professional skills; operators develop horizontally, and need to improve their comprehensive capabilities such as project management and resource coordination.

Are you suitable to be an expert or a trader?

I often encounter newcomers who are committed to working in marketing asking me: Is it recommended that you develop vertically to become an expert, or develop horizontally to become a trader? First of all, whether experts or traders, they all have their own advantages and competitive barriers in the workplace, and there is no absolute distinction between good and bad.

In the workplace, we find that some people have a very strong ability to implement things, but are unable to summarize and refine their own experience well; some people are particularly good at research and analysis, and can extract methods and routines just by observing and analyzing others, but when it comes to specific implementation, they will be affected by various objective factors and cannot achieve good execution results.

Therefore, whether to become an expert or a trader, it is best to consider multiple factors such as your own personality, interests and hobbies, current ability model, long-term career goals, etc. in order to get the best answer.

Listed below are some characteristics of experts and traders to help you make more scientific decisions.

[Marketing Expert] is like a good general, with a great reputation and outstanding achievements! Possess ingenuity and idealism.

l Personality traits: Able to focus on and delve deeply into things that you like and are passionate about; possess a certain ingenuity and idealism in doing things, and have high requirements for the work you produce.

l Hobbies and Interests: Be able to obtain constant inspiration from life, and at the same time feed these inspirations into creation, so that life hobbies and work output can be well combined.

l Ability model: Relatively speaking, the ability model is relatively simple, but the individual skills can be honed very well, surpassing the vast majority of people in the same position; and in the process of improving one's own level, one can gain a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction.

l Career goal: To become the best in a specific position, to be highly recognized in the industry, and to be able to survive with my craftsmanship and skills in the future.

[Marketing Operator] is more like a general, commanding the battle at the front line! Pursue efficiency and optimality.

l Personality traits: Acting quickly and decisively without dragging one's feet, with a strong desire for control; open-minded and willing to socialize with strangers, with great patience, empathy and tolerance.

l Hobbies and Interests: I enjoy the feeling that everything is under my control; I have a wide range of interests and hobbies, I like to get in touch with new people and things, and I love challenges.

l Capability model: The ability to manage and coordinate projects, partners, and resources is very important, and the comprehensive ability is strong. You can have a basic understanding of each section, have strong execution and problem-solving abilities, and can handle multiple things simultaneously through multi-line operations.

l Career goal: In the future, I hope to become an excellent manager who can rely on strong management skills and abundant resources to complete my work.

I believe that through the above description, everyone has probably made some preliminary judgments on whether they are suitable to be an expert or a trader.

How to become a good trader

As for how to become an excellent marketing expert, I have discussed it very systematically in the previous article "Deliberate Practice of Excellent Advertisers". It basically follows the pattern of "thinking model-deliberate practice-timely feedback". Friends who are interested can review this article.

In recent years, Lao Pao has been working for Party A, and most of the time he has to act as a trader. He has found that being an expert and being a trader are two completely different working states. Here are some practical experiences I can share with you on how to become an excellent trader:

l Resource integration, communication and coordination: Compared with purely creative tasks such as writing a copy or a plan, which have high professional barriers, the things faced in managing a project are many times more complicated; this leads to the fact that most things cannot be completed by oneself, but require the use of all accessible forces and coordinated resources. The probability of success will increase accordingly with every additional force.

l Quick response and problem solving: When managing, promoting and executing projects, traders will face many uncertainties, such as delayed progress in certain links, unexpected events, and difficulties beyond their control. Once a situation beyond the plan occurs, the trader's ability to respond quickly, solve problems quickly and overcome difficulties will be tested.

l Grasp the overall situation and switch channels continuously: It is best to form a map similar to a visual card in your mind about the important sections of the overall project. This will not only allow you to have a mental grasp of the overall situation, but also enable you to switch and handle different matters more efficiently.

l Make professional division of labor according to the capability model: When talking about Diao Ye’s article earlier, it was mentioned that we should respect professional division of labor. The most direct application scenario is to place them in the most appropriate positions according to the ability characteristics of different people and the advantages of different suppliers.

For example, marketing consulting companies are more likely to ask them to conduct market research and formulate marketing strategies, use advertising creative companies to produce advertising ideas and content with dissemination power, and use media agencies to select media and operate delivery. Only in this way can we maximize the effectiveness of all resources and manpower and achieve results and goals more efficiently.

l Details determine success or failure, so pay attention to details: The success of a project is of course inseparable from the guidance of the general strategic direction. Being on the right track is the basis for achieving results. However, in the execution process, control of details is also indispensable. Sometimes the adjustment of a small detail can often affect the final effect.

People who work in operations should understand this well. For example, with advertising, the same content may lead to completely different results with just a slight adjustment in the lead copy. This is why Internet companies like to do tests first, find the best solution, and then invest more resources to replicate and promote it on a large scale.

l Optimizing strategies based on general management experience during review: How to gain the gains and experience of others over many years in just one year? Reviewing is one of the most effective ways to help you grow quickly. Many people think that they are done once they have completed a task, and then they can't wait to complete the next task. Although this mechanical way of working seems to get a lot of things done, personal growth is very slow and it is easy to encounter bottlenecks.

Reviewing requires a person to have a mindset of growth and learning. After completing a task, one should look back and think about what was done well to draw valuable experience, and what was not so good that needs to be optimized next time. It is far more valuable to do one thing thoroughly and clearly than to do multiple things in a muddled way.

Beyond Marketing: Thinking Model Determines the Ceiling

In his book of advice to young people, Kazuo Inamori summarized an equation for achieving good results based on his own life experiences: "Results of life and work = way of thinking x passion x ability." Improving a person's way of thinking and mentality can bring about a huge turnaround in life and career; even if one has ability and passion, but makes directional mistakes in thinking, it will be difficult to achieve good results.

It can be said that the underlying cognition and thinking determine a person's growth rate and the ceiling they can reach. Here are a few thinking models that I have recently summarized based on some books and actual combat. I hope they can be of some inspiration to everyone:

The first principles thinking framework

Any phenomenon or thing must have its most fundamental cause. The first principle is the first cause and only cause that transcends the law of causality. It tells people to see through the essence of things and solve problems from the source.

Elon Musk is accustomed to using the first principles as a thinking framework: breaking down all barriers of knowledge and returning to the origin of things to think about basic issues; most of the time we imitate what others do and make slight changes, but when we want to do something revolutionary new, we must use the first principles to think.

Embrace a growth mindset

When faced with a task beyond their capabilities, many people's first reaction is that they have never done it before and they can't do it. However, some people adopt the mentality of learning if they don't understand, and they fall in love with challenges because they can learn new knowledge.

The former is a typical fixed mindset. They think they are only good at things in certain specific areas, and once they encounter things beyond their existing abilities, they will think they are not capable of them. The latter is the growth mindset that we should really have. People with this type of thinking believe that any ability can be cultivated and learned as long as the right method is found, and maintaining lifelong growth and learning is the eternal truth.

Optimism over perfectionism

It would be great to do something to perfection, but in reality, due to various objective factors, such as time constraints, insufficient resource support, lack of ability, emergencies, etc., we are often unable to do things as perfectly as we want. At this time, if we insist on doing it, we will only fall into great pain and loss.

At this time, we must learn to understand and accept the complexity of everything in the world, compromise with ourselves and accept imperfection, and more importantly, be able to find the best solution within our capabilities. Therefore, what we should pursue is more objective optimism rather than constant perfectionism.

Learning and doing are a product relationship

Things that humans do can be roughly divided into consumption-type and investment-type. Consumption-type things usually refer to those that can get a fixed return immediately after spending time, but have little effect on personal future appreciation. For example, buying a piece of clothing worth hundreds of dollars and comparing prices on various e-commerce platforms, you may end up spending two hours saving dozens of dollars. Things like learning, fitness, training, and social practice are typical investment-type things. Although people cannot get direct rewards through these things, they can make their future time more valuable.

So how do we allocate our time between consumption-type and investment-type tasks? Professor Xue Zhaofeng once gave a practical answer. He said that learning and making money are in a multiplication relationship. 5 times 5 equals 25, which is greater than 1 times 9 equals 9. Therefore, the ratio of time used for learning and making money should be balanced. If you only study but don't do anything, you will become a poor scholar whose talent is not recognized; if you only do things but don't study, you will become a drudge in life.

This is why at work, sometimes we are so busy every day, but we find that the speed of our ability improvement is not proportional to the effort we put in; because people’s daily energy is limited, in this state, although we are very tired and hard every day, learning is 1 and working is 9.

Flow state is far better than lying flat

Faced with social pressure and anxiety, "lying flat" has become a popular way for young people to comfort themselves and make fun of themselves. However, can lying flat at home and doing nothing really bring a sense of happiness in life? The answer is no. Human beings' true experience of happiness comes from the flow state, which is a psychological state achieved when you devote yourself to a certain activity, forget about time and focus on it. At this time, you can get a constant sense of happiness.

Those who enjoy their work are often because they can get the flow experience through work. This experience brings them infinite satisfaction and happiness, making them enjoy this state extremely. This can also explain why when we focus on doing something, we feel happy and efficient.

Building high-quality mental representations

A mental representation is a mental structure that corresponds to a thing, idea, information, or anything else that our brain is thinking about. After we obtain information from the outside world, we convert this information into representations and store them in our memory. Those that are used frequently will remain in our long-term memory, which greatly enhances our understanding and cognition of this information.

For example, when it comes to brand marketing, ordinary people may think of the brand name, logo, slogan, etc.; while professional brand planners, in addition to the name and logo, will also think of more in-depth content such as market and consumer analysis, brand positioning, building brand assets, and brand communication. Because each person's knowledge structure and experience are different, the psychological representations they establish for the same thing are also different.

Consciously constructing efficient mental representations can continuously improve cognitive learning capabilities and is also the basis for maintaining a stable output of high-quality information.

The highest level of doing things is to be able to explain everything with your own system. I hope you can become a marketer who does more than just marketing!

Author: Marketing Laopao

Source: Marketing Laopao