In the dating world of marketing, the marketer is the man

I just had a copywriting article published in MarketingProfs.com (hurray!) which has led to a flurry of requests from potential copywriting clients (double hurray!). Since I’ve finally started getting serious about my “Marketing Is Like Dating” book, I’m exploring those themes here. Hence this blog post, which comes from getting the article published…

When I first went to two of my mentors with my book idea, they both thought it brilliant, but they both asked about gender. Was the marketer one gender or the other or did it matter? I was surprised to realize that I hadn’t thought about it, I just assumed the marketer was the “man” because the marketer’s role is similar to the traditional man’s role in the dating world. (Note: Both of these mentors are men.) The marketer pursues, woos and courts the customer.

Getting that article published proves my gender breakdown is viable, because I as the marketer (marketing my copywriting agency We Know Words) play the role of the man in the relationship with these prospects who are reaching out to me. They have made initial contact by emailing me and asking me to contact them. That’s equivalent to a woman making eye contact across the bar to let a man know she’s interested.

These prospects “make eye contact” but it’s my responsibility to make the first move, to walk across the bar and actually strike up a conversation. I must make the first move by calling these prospects to see if there’s a spark, meaning any interest in working together.

Yes, the marketer is the man.

P.S. As part of the book and this blog, I’m soliciting your input. Right now I’m particularly interested in dating disaster stories. The book has nine principles that apply to marketing communications and each one is also a “dating” principle. It will be full of dating analogies. So send your dating horror stories to sharon@weknowwords.com and I’ll see if I can match it up with one of my principles. And I promise to ask for happy stories at some point. Maybe. Depends on how my dating life is going probably. J