My Best Marketing Tips #26: Co-op / Jordan McDowell / Lead Communications Planning & Media Optimisation Manager
Jordan McDowell calls himself a “communicator and a marketeer outright.” He loves everything about communicating and working with “content, words and pictures” and his role working on comms and media relations for the Co-op allows him to do just that while exploring the future of marketing.
While Jordan prefers to read “non-work” books in his spare time, he recommends Sarah Richards’ “Content Design” to anyone interested in getting a quick introduction on how to design a webpage with the end-user and their experience in mind. It’s “simple principles of making words work online.”
What would be your best marketing tip?
Start with the idea that no-one cares about what you have to say.
I’m not sure I was told this, or whether it’s something I’ve learnt myself through my experience. Essentially, people have plenty of messages thrown at them on a regular basis. It’s not their job to care about yours, it’s your job to make them care.
How have you put this marketing tip to good use?
I think doing this on every aspect of comms I work on is essential. I just think that it forces me to get my content to be as relevant and as interesting as it can possibly be. It also forces me to make hard choices about where I put those messages, which is also very important.
What marketing tips does the industry need most right now?
We’re living in a world where technology is moving so rapidly and we’re always coming into new and exciting opportunities in the digital space. I think brands need to continually ask themselves: how can we make the internet more useful or more convenient for our customers, with this new technology?
Also, nothing is a “nice to have” anymore. You don’t need to just get the basics right, because what happens when you put all your effort into the basics and risk the future? The so-called basics may not even be an important or viable comms vehicle in the near future. So, brands need to work on everything and try to stay abreast of the tech trends as well as build a solid base.
What is the marketing tip you give most often?
“Say ‘yes’ and be nice.” Genuinely, I think these are the best tips for someone trying to break into the industry. You never know where opportunities will come from, so try to network as much as possible, put content out there but also go to events and parties and speak to people. If you’re an introvert, that’s harder to do but I think you need to also “fake it till you make it” to an extent, get involved, at least at the start.
Listen to Jordan talk about his work with extended reality experiences, his top tips for marketing students, and more of his views on the future of marketing, on the latest episode of our Shiny New Object podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/03SUtq4qPFOhz0MYTAdOTX
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