Marketers Benefit From Diverse Exposure

It is important for marketers to understand human motivations and the environments in which they operate. This helps fine tune their intuition. 

I had previously written a blog post on non-marketing books of potential interest to marketers. Beyond books on various topics, here are the activities and exposures that can help marketers increase their intuition about what marketing strategies and tactics could work best:

• Living in different regions of the country
• Traveling domestically and internationally, especially when you are able to interact significantly with the natives of those places
• Cultivating a wide circle of friends and acquaintances across ages, genders, vocations, races, religions, political affiliations and socio-economic groups
• Hosting and attending dinner parties
• Joining a book club
• Joining a wide variety of organizations
• Serving on the marketing committees of a wide variety of not-for-profit organizations
• Getting involved in civic and community affairs
• Getting involved in the local PTA
• Becoming a member of a coffee klatch
• Consuming a large amount and diversity of of media from movies, television programming and radio talk shows to periodicals, blogs and other online media
• Listening to a wide variety of music
• Getting involved in social media discussions
• Conducting a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative research
• Spending time in new product development
• Spending time as a salesperson interacting with customers and prospects
• Driving for Uber or Lyft in your spare time
• Moonlighting as a bartender

Don't underestimate the power of wide exposure. That is what leads to marketing intuition.