Cause
Note: This is the first piece in the series that will explain what CMOStack is. If you haven’t seen CMOStack Model, check it out here first.
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A cause is anything that a significant portion of the population cares about. It can be a local cause or a global one. But a substantial percentage of the population must care about it. The deeper their feeling towards the cause, the easier it will be to spread your offering.
This doesn’t mean that you cannot sell stuff that just makes people’s lives better. Sure, but high-growth marketing is usually driven by a cause and values that help create a tribe.
Trickle-down passion
A war is won on how passionate your Generals and foot soldiers are, not how loudly the commander cries from his office.
Many organizations have a charismatic CEO but when you talk to anyone on the second rung, you see the big disconnect. They are there for the pay, for the status, or just inertia. If a company is working towards a cause, it is easy to recruit folks where passion runs through the lowest rung of marketers and product teams. It binds the team and the community. The stronger the cause, the easier it will be to market your offering.
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Marketing at scale
This framework is for marketers looking for high-growth, although it can be applied universally.
We are talking about businesses that really want to change the world. With such businesses, you will need to hire a lot of people to drive marketing at scale.
To drive this cost down, you will need a team and a community. To hire the smartest and most driven team, you will have to spend a load of money. Or you could attract the best minds that are motivated by the cause and align them well to your marketing efforts.
The stronger the resonance with your cause, the lower your marketing spend per impact would be. The impact could be anything ranging from a petition signed to user signup to a purchase or subscription of some kind.
Smartest minds in marketing will only work for causes
With a rapidly changing external environment, it is hard to even list the skills required to handle a high-growth marketing setup. The smartest of marketers are those who explore, take initiative and risk, build communities, and a lifestyle around the product that they’re selling.
All of this is possible only if the CMO and everyone in the marketing team are closely connected by a shared cause. Satisfaction and community will take precedence and these marketers will automatically be drawn to causes, as long as they can build a great life around this.
It is difficult to have a marketing newsletter without mentioning the master marketer of our times. Steve Jobs, when looking for someone to market the new Apple computers, told xxx of Pepsi to come work for Apple. He said, “you want to come to change the world or keep selling sugar water?”
Look at some of the biggest marketers like Tim Ferriss, Naval, James Clear, and Conor-White Sullivan. Even some folks like Visa, QC, Phoebe Tickell. These are some great marketers of 2020. They have mastered the art of building a community and great business models around them. They are all drawn to causes that provide satisfaction rather than selling sugar water.
These folks will be very difficult to hire. You can only leverage their drive if your cause aligns with theirs.
Do you have a cause for your startup/business? If not, how will you build your tribe? Comment below the article.
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tIn every newsletter, I will analyze one case study from my subscribers. So if you have a marketing issue, email me at pareenwriting@gmail.com and I will get on a one-to-one Zoom call to analyze your marketing and give you suggestions on implementing CMOStack to your business.
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