I need to ask for forgiveness.
Please forgive me for ragging on Gary Vee so much. The guy isn't that bad.
He spews many things that derail young marketeers, but he also helped me grasp a few core marketing and life lessons.
So, to pay my respect to him for that, I want to start a new miniseries. The miniseries? Gary Vee Wisdom (Don't judge, I just made that up).
I want to share lessons from him that are worth your time (unlike his lesson about saving so much time that you swallow your gum to gain 1/7th of a second).
Today's Gary Vee Wisdom is the importance of caring in your marketing.
"The best marketing strategy ever: care." — Gary Vee.
I believe that wholeheartedly. Yes, you may be able to dupe people into paying you, and you may succeed at repeat attempts at it. But in the long run, you need to care for the person you are marketing to.
If you're like me, you may nod your head but wonder, how do I care? I understand caring is important, but how do I implement that in my marketing?
Let's look at where the word care came from.
Care as a noun came from the Old English word caru, which means "concern, anxiety, sorrow, grief, trouble." This then adapted into today's use of the word, which has many definitions, with one I find most helpful:
Close attention; concern; responsibility.
Do you feel that for your audience? A responsibility to be honest and help them for help's sake? When most see people as $$$, few think through the lens of care.
What does this look like in practice?
(I won't use Gary Vee for the example because, even though it's his quote, I see him moving further and further from genuinely caring for his audience to focusing on profiting off them–e.g., NFTS).
There is a woman I follow named Laura McKownen. She runs a sober community called The Luckiest. She also has written many blogs detailing her sobriety.
As someone who has danced with the sobriety battle, I feel she cares for her audience (like me). It isn't a sales pitch. It's her feeling of concern and responsibility to help those she set out to serve.
That's why her community is thriving. It's why to listen to her podcast even though I have 32 episodes in the queue.
Of course, she wants to profit off me, but she cares for me first. She makes content generously for her audience to help them. She pays close attention to us *young* sober people.
Model your caring (marketing) from her and many other great marketers. And realize how caring upfront usually leads to profits down the road.
Don't get the process backward.
Marketeer Insights ⚔️
- Everyone, even Gary Vee, has some wisdom to offer if you can discern his message and understand the core principles
- Today's Gary Vee Wisdom is to care first, sell second
- The way to act out caring in your marketing is to truly understand your audience to know where they need help or guidance (even if it's outside your product 🤭)
🧠 + ❤️ // JO