Conscious Marketing: Understanding Our Metaphors
Channel: George Kao
Date: 2018-09-11

~ Becoming Conscious in Our Marketing ~

In order to be able to do marketing and selling consciously (with awareness of how our actions impact others’ emotions, as well as our own psyche), it is helpful to look at the foundational metaphors we use in marketing.

Here are the typical metaphors… 

» Marketing as War. You are waging a campaign to crush the competition, undercut them with lower prices, and dominate market share. (Many corporations use this metaphor.)

» Marketing as Hunting. You are baiting your target audience into capturing their email address. As they buy a low price item, it is a tripwire that triggers your marketing funnel to sell them more, and hopefully, you'll make a killing! (This is the common metaphor used by digital marketers or internet marketers.)

» Marketing as Religion. Structure your content to indoctrinate your new followers into your worldview, and eventually convert them into buyers. You’ll have control over them when you become their guru. (This is essentially cult-building, trying to mind-control one’s audience through hypnotic and persuasion techniques.)

» Marketing as Science. Each piece of your content is an experiment to test the market for their reactions so you can keep adjusting for more predictable results. Don't get emotional about the ups or the downs. Stay objective. (I like this metaphor better than the others above, but using it exclusively means ignoring the heart, which will tend to erode a true relationship with your audience.)

» Marketing as Dating. Just like it would be inappropriate to ask someone to marry you the first time you meet them, you don't ask your potential client to buy your biggest service package when they're just getting to know you. Ease them in, as you would in dating, through content and low-priced offers first. (This is a decent metaphor, because it’s about human relationships. However, there are too many unethical or inauthentic dating methods out there. I’ll offer a better metaphor below.)  

So many marketers are unconscious of the metaphors they're using. They don't realize that they are spreading values in the world that even they would disagree with!

If there's dissonance between the marketer's higher values and their actions, the audience can sense it, making it difficult to build long-term trust. Also, the more that the marketer becomes conscious of this inner discord, the more he will sabotage his efforts, eventually causing a crisis in his business.

This is what happened to me in 2013. From 2009-2013, I was doing marketing actions that didn't align with my higher values. As I became more conscious of it, I began (unknowingly) to sabotage my own marketing efforts. 

Eventually, I had to stop my business altogether. In 2014, I started over with a new way of being in business, a new metaphor for working with marketing that aligned with my higher values.

No longer was I doing war, hunting, or religion. I came to see marketing as education, service, and a cause—to help others (at scale) regardless of whether they bought from me.

» I began to use a new metaphor: Marketing as Friendship.

I see myself building a friendship with my audience as a whole. 

I start that friendship by connecting on common things, for example, our common interest in business based on higher values.

As a friend might do, I will keep in touch with you respectfully and only send you content that I truly believe you’ll find helpful or interesting.

To know what is interesting for you, I stay observant in our interactions about your needs and wants. I learn about you more deeply so that I can better help you.

If I think you are misguided about something, I'm not going to judge you. I will still respect and care for you. Of course, I will try to share my way of thinking, to see if it also resonates with you. 

Importantly, I also listen to your opinions and allow the possibility for you to change my perspective, to modify or upgrade my point of view.

Growing up, my mother told me "Everyone will say nice things to you. Your real friends are willing to tell you the hard truths, in hopes that it may help you." Similarly, I sometimes ask you to be honest with me on how I can improve. I am observant of any suggestions I get from you.

Of course, not everyone will resonate with me as a friend, and similarly, I don't expect everyone to resonate with my marketing.

A compatible friend would totally accept me as I am. Similarly, I feel liberated in my marketing to be myself, knowing that the audiences that are meant for me will resonate with my content and style. I encourage you to think that way about your own content and style as well.

To read the rest of the article, go to:
https://medium.com/@georgekao/conscious-marketing-understanding-our-metaphors-2e5490273666