Marketing Against My Enemy

The weakness of any marketer is the dogma of their craft. They find ways to make a cult of their inhibitions.

Common marketers cannot comprehend how the greats engineer their victories from the point of view of the competition themselves.

All they ever see are the tactics by which a great marketing campaign is won, and none of them understand the planning behind them.

Residing in Silicon Valley, I can observe that a number of marketers essentially celebrate laziness as they look for "viral loops" and "automated processes" in everything they do.

They obsess over formulas to hack human psychology so they can magically flip a switch, sit back, and just sip cocktails as they sermonize their work.

Automation has its place, but many marketers are not scientists and that's actually a good thing.

One can find that great marketing is often rooted in the ability to think like a scientist yet act like an artist.

That means objectively scrutinizing your work with no subjective attachment to it.

However, action will come in the posture of an artist, which means doing something that isn't for mass consumption and has edge to it.

It means doing something that is remarkable because it is "worth making a remark about".

It's easy to soften down sharp edges to become more palatable for mass consumption, but in doing so your message becomes a wandering generality rather than a meaningful specific.

With the fast changing pace of digital marketing it is beneficial to keep from employing the same strategy multiple times. Doing so gives a feeling of safety and comfort, thus allowing a marketer to keep from the paranoia of looking ahead to where the market could be going.

When you constantly experiment and deploy things that might not work you collect and use an infinite variety of tactics at your disposal.

Marketing strategy (like military strategy) is like water, which flows away from high ground towards low ground. The Art of War masterfully explains this approach in warfare, and it's applicable to more aspects of one's life than is perceived.

Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote some of the most important pieces of literature in marketing ever. Their book "Brand Positioning" simply states you have to pick the opposite side of your competition and stick to it.

If they're expensive, we're cheap.

If they're fast, we're slow.

In marketing tactics, it can be advantageous to avoid the competition's strengths and attack their weaknesses.

Water adapts its course according to the terrain; in the same way you should shape the success of your marketing campaigns around the competition's dispositions.

It is difficult to find any constants in the warfare modern marketing, just as it is difficult for water to maintain a constant shape.

The ability to shape victories in marketing by shaping tactics according to the competition ranks with the greats.

The digital algorithms we all try to hack never last for long just as none of the four seasons of a year lasts indefinitely.

You have to just reap in the spring what you sowed in the fall while keeping in mind that winter will be here any day.

The sun rises and sets; the moon waxes and wanes.

Marketing today means objectively scrutinizing your work and removing subjective attachment to all that you create.

Caution and Measure will ultimately win you Treasure.

Omar M. Khateeb is an unorthodox and innovative medical device marketing leader with a background in science and medicine. 

His interests reside in sales psychology, neuromarketing, and self-development practices.

Check out his virtual bookshelf here to find your next great read, and connect with him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or SnapChat.