Anita Newton shares her three marketing truths that work anywhere

KANSAS CITY— Anita NewtonAnita Newton has worked in almost every situation, marketing for academia to tech, big brands and even startups. There aren’t many places she hasn’t been and with that much experience she has came up with a few marketing truths:

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Anita Newton

KANSAS CITY — Anita Newton has worked in almost every situation, marketing for academia to tech, big brands and even startups. There aren’t many places she hasn’t been and with that much experience she has came up with a few marketing truths:

Truth No. 1:

The biggest lies are the ones you tell yourself. One common big lie thinking they have a good market fit when they don’t.

You are only hurting yourself if you aren’t able to decide if you have a good market fit. Many founders think they have a good fit but often are mistaken.

How you know if you achieved good market fit:

  • Can you define your target market?
  • Are you able to describe how your product is differentiated?
  • How are you different from the competition?
  • Can you articulate your benefits to your customers?
  • And finally, are those answers the same as your employee’s answers?
  • If those answers don’t line up then your company will suffer and your marketing efforts may not succeed.

Truth No. 2

Many marketers try to create a viral loop and that is one of the first things that they preach in many business books. Anita calls this trying to create a “reality show” marketing team or campaign.

Your marketing team is not a reality show; there is no such thing as viral marketing or silver bullets to solve everything. You must put in actual effort to get results.

Truth No. 3

The scarcest thing on the planet is human attention. You aren’t going to be able to hold this generation’s attention with past tactics.

Out attention span has dropped below the mighty goldfish with a nine second attention span. Humans have eight seconds.

To break through that lack of attention you must present ideas that are unexpected or create an emotional connection.

She played a video to show the emotion that can be brought out in an advertisement and there was not a dry eye in the place. A little heavy for a Friday afternoon but it hit its point.

She used it to show that emotion really can do anything. It also showed that universal truths could be used to market effectively.

If you are able to figure out the universal truths for each of your market segments, Newton believes your company can do great things.


This story is part of the AIM Archive

This story is part of the AIM Institute Archive on Silicon Prairie News. AIM gifted SPN to the Nebraska Journalism Trust in January 2023. Learn more about SPN’s origin »

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