“Everyone is a marketeer” is a statement I came across over much eye-rolling when I was employed, as a marketeer. It is a way of saying to anyone outside of Marketing and Comms… “don’t have suggestions because you don’t know what you are talking about.” I get it. But it also not necessarily true.

In my many years working with managers, management teams and clients, they often have opinions about the look, feel, font, design, brand and message and I welcome it.

In situations that I feel the client or manager are really wrong or going off in an obscure direction, I will propose my reasoning, using my experience and data to back it up. In other circumstances, I think “wow” because they gave me a perspective, angle or insight that I was unable to see.

I can park my ego at the door because while I am pouring my marketing mastery into creative content it doesn’t mean it is always 100% right and I am OK with that. In fact, I find the collaborative creative process much more fulfilling and rewarding.

We might not all be qualified, marketeers. I am not even qualified except through job roles and experience. But we are all consumers. We all get targeted, retargeted, emailed, cold-called and we all opt-in, opt-out, trust and complain. We are a part of the process and every insight is valuable. To simply disregard input is not helpful and disempowers others.

If you feel precious about people having an opinion on your marketing collateral, design, content and branding then you have to ask yourself, why it bothers you so much. Opinion is just that, opinion. Sometimes feedback is useful, sometimes unhelpful, but you never know when someone can offer a real nugget of gold that can inspire you to make marketing greatness.