Selling Ideas, Not Just Products
Hello readers and fellow Praxians! Over the past few weeks, I’ve been toggling between two different kinds of marketing at OpenEd. The work I do on the book tour falls under “category marketing,” while much of what I help Ela with would be considered “growth marketing.”
What is Marketing?
There are many types of marketing and job titles in the field, but what they mean isn’t always clear. At its core, marketing is the process of creating and delivering value-based arguments for your offerings. In other words, helping people understand why they should care about your product and motivating them to buy it.
How Is That Different from Sales?
Marketing and sales often overlap because they’re two parts of the same process. Marketing focuses on generating awareness and attracting leads, while sales is about converting those leads into customers through direct interaction.
There are many strategies for finding and acquiring leads, which is where the different types of marketing come in.
Two Types of Marketing: Category and Growth
Let’s take a closer look at two marketing approaches: category marketing and growth marketing.
Category marketing is about spreading awareness of the broader ideas surrounding your product and building authority in that space.
The book tour is a great example of this. We’re not just promoting OpenEd, we’re promoting the broader concept of Open Education. By leading that conversation, Matt and OpenEd become top-of-mind when people think about the category itself.
Growth marketing, on the other hand, focuses on driving specific results. Such as, increasing applications to the OpenEd program. It’s an umbrella term that includes a variety of tactics, such as email campaigns, landing page optimization, and meta-ads.
The goal of your marketing determines which category it falls into. For instance, content marketing can be used for either growth or category purposes depending on your audience and call to action (CTA).
Highlighted Conversation
Want to see a great example of category marketing in action? Check out Isaac Morehouse (CEO of OpenEd) on the Tom Woods Show. It’s a great example of using storytelling to get people interested in the category of Open Education.
Art Piece of the Week
Jellyfish done with a dip pen and ink wash.