The Competitive Nature of Marketing

I once contacted a marketing firm to get some feedback on a copywriting piece in their niche. I was hoping that they would want to collaborate. Essentially, I was told that they don’t advise for free. Being a marketer is competitive and oftentimes brutal. As I pushed on in the industry, I realized that small and micro businesses were shifting away from marketers and agencies to do everything themselves. To be a marketer, you must be competitive, but marketing can be more than a paycheck – it can save someone’s business.

Hey, what’s up, I’m Ashley Poplin. My husband, Alex, and I decided we were tired of living in the societal matrix. We quit our jobs and moved to our dream location in the beautiful mountains of North Georgia. Now, we pursue knowledge and excellence in everything we do. Come along with us and enjoy our Poplin Pursuits.

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Marketing is competitive

And not just in general. All aspects of marketing are competitive.

The new trend is to start a marketing company to achieve the financial, time, and personal freedom people crave. Sounds Great to Me!

This means that anyone with no experience can start a marketing company. For those of us who have spent our entire careers learning, growing, and adapting to marketing techniques… can be frustrating.

However, let’s be real…… There are so many businesses out there!!!

There’s plenty of room in the marketing field for different opinions & techniques. So why are so many people judgemental and sometimes downright rude to these marketers?

Actual Imposters

Some of my clients have taken the time to hire such businesses because they are usually cheaper. Since these “businesses” have no experience, I’m always told about overpromising and underdelivering.

That will KILL your reputation but also hurt other businesses like mine. It’s hard for people to trust our industry now. They would instead hire their friend over people who have spent their entire careers studying marketing.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism…You have a voice. You have your own ideas. If you don’t have anything you want to talk about that, you can’t sit down and write out without looking at someone else’s blog post…. you need to start rethinking your piece. As someone who actively studied plagiarism on a collegiate level, it’s simple to connect the dots.

If you do it, you’re going to get crushed.

So here’s my advice to our new marketing friends.

You don’t have to be a full-service marketing firm to make money.

WHAT?!? You’re telling me I don’t have to know and offer everything that full marketing agencies offer to make money?!? Yes, that’s precisely what I’m saying.

Being full-service means I often have to do things I don’t like…. like social media! I make my living off of connecting small businesses to marketing techniques that work for them… the biggest one is social media, and it’s not my favorite thing. Cue the Collaboration Plan!

How I realized I don’t want to dismiss these new marketing businesses

I was working with a new client with an office admin who constantly fixed their in-house social media assistant’s mistakes. She loved it. It was fun for her. One day, she asked me if we could discuss her marketing firm business plan.

The first question I asked her was… What’s your experience? She replied that she had none other than the posts she worked on.

Right then, I decided I would never be like that agency I emailed when I started. Imagine what could have happened if they offered me to collaborate.

What did I learn? She was hard working and pursuing higher education for it. Most importantly, she was good at social media.

Why would she want to start a full-service firm when tons of people, agencies, and businesses need help with content creation?!?

Now, she’s branding herself as a content creator and running her new business like a boss.

Collaboration

If I had blown her off and told her to find a new career… where would I be? I wouldn’t be reevaluating my own brand, I wouldn’t be trying to step up my game to show the newcomers how it’s done, and I wouldn’t have grown as a business owner or even a person.

If we hadn’t talked, would she have started a full-service marketing firm?

Our collaboration taught me a lot, and now, when I get those emails or calls, I answer them. I even offer training sessions for my clients. If I have a business owner who isn’t happy with their team, I offer them the option for me to train, create templates, and provide office hours – BEFORE they move on.

For the Pursuit:

I used to only think of marketing as a numbers game. That’s why I liked it… until I met my husband.

Alex is a social butterfly. I used to call him a chameleon, but he is, in every sense, a butterfly. Don’t get me wrong – a very sexy masculine butterfly. He has the ability to migrate from a group of people to a group of people and just be himself. He talks to listen, asks to understand, and motivates by just showing up.

He’s the one that made me realize that marketing is about the people.

You don’t want to market what you don’t believe in, and you must play the game to stand up for what you love. So I’m competitive now, and this game is more than numbers.