The best style of work for marketing - be clever and lazy

This is not a post about what to do, but how to make it happen.

It’s not a post about tactics or strategies or growth hacks—it's a guide for becoming the best type of marketer: clever and lazy. Let's set the scene here with the four types of marketing working styles.

Marketing Working Styles

On this handy-dandy matrix we've got:

The Lazy and Lame Marketer

The worst. We don't want to be this kind of marketer ever. These marketers half-ass their messaging, don't think about their customers, and never reach success.

The Hardworking and Lame Marketer

If you've ever been a manager and had someone in this category on your team, you know how frustrating it can be. Being hardworking without being clever is a lot of work. Too much work, frankly.

The Clever and Hardworking Marketer

Every now and then Clever and Hard Work coincide. What's beautiful about this: the higher you are on the clever scale, the more certain you are spending hard work on the right things. That's what clever brings to the table.

The Clever and Lazy Marketer

Clever and lazy marketing is the absolute sweet spot. You're not stressing about your baseline marketing, because you've built a system. And what's more, you get to spend time experimenting and doing fun clever marketing campaigns that connect with your audience and increase revenue.

You can work hard and lame or you could be clever and lazy. we pick clever and lazy every time.

We're not saying you should be lazy, but we are saying that there is a difference between being clever and hard-working. And when it comes down to it, we prefer cleverness over brute force every time.

Clever lazy marketing means you can work on what matters most today: your audience. It's all about the people who buy your stuff or use your services—what they like, what they need, and how they want to experience your product or service in the future. Clever lazy marketing isn't just about quick wins; it's about understanding how people think so you can tell them stories that make sense for them—stories that build trust and convert leads into paying customers.

The magic word that allows you to be as lazy as possible here: consistency. Consistency is key. keep building, and in no time you'll be able to look back and have piles of amazing content to choose from to build more marketing campaigns.

How to be a clever/lazy marketer: Identify what you have.

Identify what you have. Your resources, time, budget, and efforts in motion. This will be tough on some things, so don't allow yourself to get into the weeds on your estimates. Make a guess and adjust once you begin time tracking.

We have a truly in-depth checklist we use for this, but here are a few common resources to identify

• Marketing resources - do you have a designer? Can you DIY design? How about writing?
• Time and budget constraints - how much time do you have to create or find content for your blog/email/social media posts? Are there any competing projects that need to be completed first or simultaneously with this one?
• Catalog what Marketing efforts are already in motion.
• You should already have an understanding of what is working and what isn’t going on in your current campaigns. One of the key questions to ask yourself is why a certain campaign isn't working. What can you change and test right now to make it better? These kinds of questions will get you to the heart of being more clever in your marketing—and being more creative and thoughtful will lead to larger improvements in the long run.

How to be a clever/lazy marketer: Give yourself "The Answers."

Here's where you'll clearly define your brand promise and your customer, and this will make literally everything you do in your business from now on easier.

• Define your brand promise. Your brand promise is, Who you are, What you do, How you do it, and Why it matters. By taking the time to define your brand promise and customer, you'll be able to align all future marketing efforts with that promise for maximum reach and goal completion. Everything you do can now be guided by that promise and customer.
• Define your customer. You know how it's important to talk to people like they're human beings? Well, here's where that really comes into play! Define your customer. Your customer needs to be defined in terms of demographic, psychographics, and interests.
• Define the content journey and customer funnel. Once you've identified the customer and your brand promise, you'll want to define the content journey and customer funnel. This means you'll need to define what content your customer needs when they land on your site, after signing up, and when they convert. This will also include what other steps they can take to deepen their engagement with you.

How to be a clever/lazy marketer: “Make the Donuts”

Prioritize and score your marketing efforts and traction channels and get to work implementing your baseline marketing system. We also call this "making the donuts"

What’s the bare minimum you need to do regularly to keep “making the donuts”?

This is your baseline marketing and should take about 50% of your time.

It should include regular blog and social media posts, email blasts, content upgrades, and a pinch of fun stuff to keep people interested. The other 50% of your time should be spent on experiments and clever campaigns. You can look for new and better ways to reach and engage your customers, as well as keeping an eye out for emerging trends in the industry. This balance of baseline work and clever experiments will help you achieve success as a clever and lazy marketer.

How to be a clever/lazy marketer: Productize your business and add predictable recurring revenue

If you're a small business owner, you may not have realized yet that the best way to market your service-based business is by productizing it. Productize means that instead of just building a website and hoping for the best, you actually create digital products like ebooks or courses.

We love productizing because it helps you to focus on creating a predictable and ongoing revenue stream from repeat buyers. It's important to keep people engaged, which is why having a community or membership site along with your products is a great idea for creating loyalty.

Productizing your business also helps you have more control over what you offer, how you price it, and how you market it. It also allows you to build a brand and an online presence in a more sustainable way.

Be clever. Be lazy.

Now you get to be lazy, and don't have to spend time thinking about how to get a piece of content out. That's part of your engine. It's fun to be clever with interesting, customer-centric marketing campaigns now.

The key is to be creative and consistent. Keep your message relevant and engaging, and create an experience that your customers will remember. This can mean experimenting with live or recorded webinars, creating content like ebooks or courses, or setting up referral programs. Don't be afraid to try something new—you could surprise yourself.

Lazy marketers win in the long run because their campaigns are creative and well thought out, rather than solely focused on getting sales. Because they care about the experience of their customers, they're able to provide outstanding content that's a win-win-win for everyone involved.