Figuring out what to say in a few words about what I do for a living is such a recurrent topic for brand strategists, it’s a holiday meme.
I was at an event a couple of days ago, and of course someone asked what I did for a living.
I play around and try to test and adjust my brief explanation for different settings and audiences.
It was in French. the literal translation of ‘strategic planner / planneur stratégique’ makes sense for most people in agencies and adland, but generally not to the rest of the world, so I tend to avoid it.
It depends on the setting, but from experience, in French ‘brand’ doesn’t evoke all that much in people’s heads.
I said: ‘I’m a marketing strategist. I work with businesses to help them better understand their market and audiences.”
Them: ‘Oh, so you do market research.’
Not wrong, but also not conveying the strategy part.
I tried another approach.
‘Well yes, there is always research involved first of all, but really I help businesses understand how they are perceived, who their audience is, how to speak to them, with which message, on what media.’
It’s still broad, though I’ve done work across all these things.
Occasionally, people respond to my job title by asking for help. That happened at a business networking event last week, someone told me they really need help with marketing and asked if I could spare time to chat with them.
We just got off a call, and what seemed most useful was that I recommended changing the perspective of their communication materials, from their own business jargon, recognisable for peers; to something that makes sense to their audience, along with specific examples to illustrate their offer.
For example, I recently worked with a startup investment fund. They were about to travel to the Middle-east for a series of meetings to meet new potential partners and raise funds.
I helped them rewrite their presentation pitch slides to be clear, concise, and persuasive; from the overall flow, to clarifying how they spoke about themselves as a business, their purpose, values, structure, and the opportunity to invest with them.
As a result, they felt prepared, assured, improved the quality of their presentations, and their fundraising results.
That’s probably not funny enough for a holiday meme though.
