How to be a 10x Marketer?

A roadmap to becoming an exceptional marketer.

Do you think a product can thrive because it has the best tech or features? I don’t think so. Even the best products need distribution. But still, when I see a company hiring for multiple roles. I always see a stark difference between the budgets for hiring a dev vs hiring a marketer. Sometimes the difference is as high as 100%. Most founders here are trying to score a 10x developer (10xD), but do you know what is rarer than a 10x developer? “A 10x marketer” (10xM)

A 10xM is more nuanced when compared to a 10xD. Being a great developer is about logical thinking, personal productivity and churning out scalable code. The outcome for every developer looks more or less the same, i.e. a great product that works. There is no asymmetric upside to having a great product and hence is easily benchmarkable against other products in the industry. Whereas marketing is about creativity, personality and flair. These things are not benchmarkable. It is like comparing IQ & personality. One is easily showcased in numbers, while the other is highly subjective. That’s the reason great marketers get asymmetric results of going viral. This makes it difficult to distinguish between good and great.

Currently, it has become critical to have a 10xM on the team. The tech is commoditising at an alarming rate. With the rise of AI, tech moats are diminishing. In the 2010s, a great product with average distribution could have printed $$, but now that's not the case. With the rise of solo devs, no-code tools & scalable solutions like AWS, just having the right product won’t help you scale.

I feel commodity saas prices & profitability will tend towards 0 as more and more competition comes into the market. In the future, most of the commodity SaaS solutions will be free, and there will be a major shift in how they make money from customers. No one will pay $40 per month to schedule a tweet. 

Along with pricing tending towards 0, CAC is at an all-time high. The LTV to CAC ratio is highly skewed. Apple, FB & Google are collectively responsible for reducing ROAS. A 10xM is necessary now to help you find ways to get consistent traffic without depending on ads. An early sign of this is that most tech companies today are becoming media companies. New-age successful marketers are the ones who can build a media house that produces great content and keeps the community engaged over the long run. This will eventually help them win the CAC war.

Companies like Hubspot, Stipe, Robinhood, etc., understand this and have been acquiring communities. Examples

• Stripe Acquires Indie Hackers, a community of 20k bootstrapped founders.

• Robinhood acquires a newsletter media company MarketSnacks.

• Hubspot acquires The Hustle, a newsletter, for $20M

This will make it super difficult for an average marketer to cut through the noise, thus exploding demand for 10xM. Gone are the days when a 10xD was paid more than a 10xM. 

But can we learn to be a 10xM? If yes, how? Let’s break it down.

How does a great marketer think? 

Let’s start first with the mindset of a 10xM. But why mindset? Mindset is the real differentiator between a regular M and a 10xM. For a marketer being present at the right place at the right time isn’t enough; they need to know how to make the most of those situations. Trends come and go, but someone who understands the patterns can make the most of every situation. A 10xM is not born with this mindset, so here are some pointers on mentally moulding yourself into a 10xM. 

• Create Systems: Creating a system is more reliable than motivation. The system will help you stay updated with trends, new products, and strategies. A plan will feed you the things you need to be a 10xM. Here are some examples of questions I would want to answer while building a system. 

  • What to read to be on top of your game?

  • Who are the best marketers out there? 

  • How to keep a check on trends?

  • What tools to use to improve productivity?

  • Understand your skill gaps and identify how to upskill.

  • How are you making mind maps to retain what you have read?

  • How to create a personal knowledge base for future reference? 

  • What favourite brands to follow? 

  • Favourite competition?

  • Where would I find examples of new strategies?

    
    DM me or find me on LinkedIn for a one-pager of my personal marketing system’s template. 

• Curious: Innate curiosity helps you go in-depth into how different brands work. Curiosity will also push you down a rabbit hole of unrelated things that can be used to improve your campaigns. Most 10xM I have met read a lot. They also read about topics that aren’t directly related to marketing but enable them to make better choices. For example, you will find a 10xM reading about human psychology, storytelling, history, etc. and use this to create tempting offers that users can’t refuse.  

• Network: Being a 10xM is a lot about experimenting and learning from those experiments. Most of these experiments can’t be performed on your product hence having a network of 10xM can help you to learn a lot about the latest experiments and their success metrics. 

• Storyteller: A10xM isn’t about the degree or background. They are the ones who are exceptional storytellers and know how to surprise their audience consistently. In addition they have a personality which can be transferred to their product. 

• Adaptable: It is an unpredictable world out there. Therefore, as a marketer, you won’t know how your audience will react to your campaigns. You need to navigate through the ups and downs successfully. 

• Better at connecting dots: A 10xM is a deal maker. They find possibilities in everything. They connect the best influencers, stakeholders, agencies, etc., to work on their product; they are always looking to find new ways to market their product in this CAC war.
  See a game getting viral? Acquire it to improve your traffic.
  See a new rapper going viral? Ask him to use your merchandise in his next video.
  See a relevant blog post, and ask for a backlink.

• Understand scale: 20% of your campaigns & activities as a marketer will give you 80% of your traffic. Most products have only 2- 3 primary sources of traffic. A 10xM understands this and double downs on things that are working. The sole goal of experimenting is to find such marketing opportunities and scale them. 

What are the skills required to be a 10xM? 

I have seen many young marketers focus solely on the mindset part covered above and hate actual execution. That’s why you would find many folks with little experience looking for strategy roles. Such people don’t get hired or don’t do well due to a lack of experience. You need to be an executioner to understand the nuances. Excellent execution is 70% of being a 10xM. Marketing playbooks are available in abundance; hence ideas & strategies are useless if you can’t keep your head down and execute them consistently.

But what are the skills required? What should you execute well? Here is a list. 

• SEO

• Content Marketing

• Paid marketing 

• Partnerships

• Email marketing 

• Cold outreach 

• Community building

• Setting up customer journeys and analytics 

• Setting up CRM and other tools to scale marketing

• Influencer marketing.

• Sense of great design.

• PR

• Social media management (acclimatised to as many platforms as possible).

Some non-marketing focus areas can be

• Analytical

• Consumer behaviour

• Sales 

• Finance & pricing 

• Communication and leadership skills to manage multiple stakeholders

• Documentation 

• Planning and strategy.

• Know the tech (If selling a deep tech SaaS).

A 10xM isn’t well-versed with the whole list. However, they are the best in 2 or 3 of the above tasks and have more than average depth about the other list items. They are a T-shaped skilled employee who can manage stakeholders in other areas.

In conclusion, to be a 10xM, you must be on top of your game. You need a combination of exceptional creativity, strategic thinking, and effective communication skills underpinned by a deep understanding of consumer behaviour. A 10xM leverages the insights to develop unique campaigns that resonate with their audience, build a strong brand, and drive business growth. Finally, 10xM should keep up with the latest industry trends and emerging tools to stay ahead of the curve while adapting to changing consumer preferences. A 10xM must continuously refine its skills, engage in continuous learning, and be willing to embrace new approaches and tactics to achieve its professional goals. Ultimately, a marketer's success is measured by their ability to connect with their target audience, foster strong relationships, and deliver exceptional value to all the stakeholders. I’m hoping to see you on the other side where you are a 10xM scaling a product and creating impact for millions of users.