An Ode to the Wonderfully Weird Inner Workings of a Lead Marketing Agency

Seth Godin is my spirit animal.

I say this often. To anyone who’ll listen. Sometimes to people who won’t listen.

And I’m definitely not the only one in the office who says weird stuff like this. We get weird here. It’s a marketing thing, really.

We’re not all into Seth, though. Sterling follows #PPCChat buzz on Twitter, and Cash thinks Marketing Land is the best thing since sliced bread. But great marketers (like us) all have something in common: we’re always looking for that next tool, tip, or trick that will keep us ahead of the marketing world’s ever-moving curve.

Great marketers know that this industry is built on a razor’s edge – and toeing that edge is more like playing a chess game than connecting the dots. It requires strategy, foresight, and the willingness to take risks. And, yes, the willingness to get a little weird.

Here’s the mindset that keeps great marketers – like Seth, and us – at the front of the pack.

Birds of a Feather

“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea.”

― Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us

Seth was the first person I heard use “tribe” as a marketing term. He was probably the first person to say it, because he’s genius like that. But anyway…

The concept of a tribe is really the whole reason you’re marketing in the first place. In the marketing sense, a tribe is a group of people who share a passion for your product and, when brought together, a collective voice of like-minded support.

Think Apple. Their true believers are downright cultish. And don’t you want a cult – er, group – that is into your stuff the way Apple addicts are into their i-everything? A group who won’t shut up about how cool your stuff is? A group that will preorder your buggy beta version because they have enough faith in your product to trust that you’ll get it right in the end, despite the glitches along the way? Of course you do; that’s the kind of support we all dream of.

Our team is this same kind of hyper-motivated tribe. There are different elements of marketing we each geek out on, but the common thread is that we all really geek out on marketing. We’re lucky enough to be doing what we’re passionate about. Which means we will obsess about the choosing the right shade of green for a Call to Action button or crafting a blog post that will be shared across your channels like wildfire.

Hear the Moo

Remember when I mentioned weirdness earlier? Weird, when done well, sells. A lot. Seth Godin calls this concept the “purple cow.” If a product is remarkable in some way, it will undoubtedly grab the market share.

A brown cow, no matter how perfectly cow-ish it is, goes unnoticed. A purple cow, on the other hand, is guaranteed to stand out. It’s unexpected and it offers something extra; you’re not going to overlook it. Everyone wants to be that remarkable purple cow.

The remarkable thing about our team is the people. We don’t have NASA-level software up our sleeve or the inside track on Google’s algorithm (dangit, Google); we just have a group of marketing geeks who pride themselves on being experts, who take on challenges with gusto, and who are inspired by the pursuit of purple cow-ness.

Because no great marketer aspires to be ordinary or to simply keep up with the industry; we want to be out there leading the herd, catching eyes, creating something remarkable.

The same things you want, basically: to do what you love, and do it so well that it turns heads. And to occasionally crush Alan at foosball… (That would never happen. Alan is amazing at foosball.)

The Tail End

So, yeah, great marketers are weird – but for good reason. And we’re proud of it, because that very mindset is often the root of our best ideas and, in turn, our best work. It’s part of what makes us remarkable.

So we own our weird. We wear it proudly, as all purple cows do. And the other, not-so-great marketers? Well, they’re just seeing our tails anyway – because we’ve been out in front since 1998.

Want to get to know our remarkable team a little better? Call us.

About HyperX: We’re the marketing experts. We’ve been leading the industry in digital advertising, marketing automation, content, design and development since the internet first hit households. We’ve outlived all the other agencies because we’re the best at what we do. We can help you.