Your marketing isn’t successful when you like what you’ve done. You know your marketing is successful when the market likes what you’ve done.

When your share a message that generates new leads, that’s when you are winning the game of attention.

You can add content all day long to your website. But if it doesn’t help a stranger become a customer, it’s just contributing to the noise.

I love the phrase ‘vanity metrics.’ They describe a whole class of unimportant measurements that people care about more than they should.

Most of the noise we see on the internet is coming from people who are chasing their own vanity. Getting likes on a social media post isn’t nearly as important as getting a new customer.

Writing an article that stands out from the 2 million blog posts published every day isn’t easy. Out of the 294 billion emails that were sent today, getting yours opened is harder if your motivation is vanity.

The best marketing is motivated by service. Showing up in service to your customer is how you win the game of attention.

80% of B2B decision makers prefer to learn about a new purchase from a series of articles instead of an ad. That’s how they like to consume information. Retargeting people with Facebook ads is what Seth Godin calls “interruption marketing.” They don’t like it.

The average person is exposed to more than 5,000 ads per day, according to the New York Times. Would you rather focus your marketing on being one of those 5,000 ads that your customer sees in a day? Or would it be in greater service to create articles they actually want to read?

The best entrepreneurs pay attention to how their customers behave, and show up in service. That’s how you win the game of attention – earn it.

You probably have a competitor who uses really good language when they talk to your shared audience. Is there someone who serves the same demographic as you, and they do it really well? Take notes. Learn from your envy. Use my Competition Research Workbook to codify what they’ve done well, and watch my on-demand Masterclass to learn how to create your own swipe file.