Missing in Action: Sheer Passion in Marketing Goes a Long Way

Sheer Passion Goes a Long Way in Marketing

Surveys tell us there’s a shortage of digital talent in marketing. Digital skills are important because so much of our lives today is dependent on connectivity. But there’s a characteristic that often goes missing in marketing that counts for a lot more: passion.

I was reminded of this in reading a piece by Chris Brogan called Nobody Reads Your Corporate Blog Because It’s Boring. While he identifies three common problems in corporate blogging, it’s all predicated on one important concept:

“…the person usually tasked with creating the material just isn’t all that into the company, the customers, and the space that they’re covering. Meaning, they don’t really talk about anything useful or interesting to the person hoping to learn more and get involved in some way with what the company does or sells.”

That’s a lack of passion. In my assessment, it’s a far bigger problem than documenting a content strategy.

Marketing without passion is wasteful because humans are irrational. We tell ourselves we make decisions based on data, but the research shows we tend to buy from people we know, like and trust.

We know, like and trust passion.

The stock market provides us with a living and breathing behavioral economics experiment. It is irrational to value a company that has never made a profit at 60x sales. It echoes of Alan Greenspan’s infamous characterization.

What drives people to make such decisions? Belief, perhaps. Hope, maybe. But passion, for sure.

Marketing isn’t just about showing up every day and cranking out a certain number of blog posts or emails. Good marketing makes an emotional connection with people over shared interests.

Effective marketers tell good stories. Effective marketers build relationships. Effective marketers obsess over industry nuances. Effective marketers make the uninteresting interesting. Effective marketers love what they do and it’s clearly evident.

Marketing is about passion. Passion is infectious. Passion is compelling. Passion sells.

You can teach someone digital skills, but you can’t teach passion.

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Photo credit: Instagram.com/frankstrong