What every marketer needs is some real-life marketing understanding, which can be gleaned from a day in the life of a customer service provider. Here's why.

Marketers, lawyers, politicians. These three groups are often accused of misleading people by spinning tales and moonshine. Marketers in particular are known for their ability to spin tales about anything. We're known for the ability to excite and amaze, grab people's attention and keep it for a while. That's our job as storytellers.

So what happens when the story you're telling isn't entirely true? The lights fade and some people buy and then, they learn after a while that you sold them on a story that wasn't entirely real. At best, these people will be mildly disappointed. At worst, they'll be downright angry. In either case, they will not listen to you again.

Marketers now face the toughest, most cynical audience ever -- and it's largely our own fault. The above scenario has happened too much and too often, as we've exaggerated the benefits and hidden the flaws of our products in an effort to sell ever more. As banner clickthrough rates continue to decline and most ads largely ignored, we are becoming more and more desperate to cut through the noise and make an impact.

The authentic marketing message
If there is any lesson from the advent of Web 2.0 and the rise of "new marketing", it's that consumers are people; they like to be engaged and they like to be told the truth. In regaining the trust of consumers, it's time to sit back and be a little more honest. To cut through the noise and make an impact, we need to create more authentic marketing messages.

So what's the best path to do this? How can we create a more effective marketing message and product promise that resonate with the consumer that the customer willingly spreads?

I'm suggesting a novel approach that we use at GoodBarry: get you and your marketing team to help out with customer service and support.

Get involved with customer support
Whatever that is for your company, get on the front line and get involved. Do some tech support, some phone support, some front desk customer service. Hear the real voices of your real customers telling you their real thoughts.

There are two reasons you should do this.

Get "real world" product knowledge
Most marketers do understand their product and what it does. Unfortunately, this isn't really the complete picture. Real product understanding comes from knowing more than the specifications, size, colour and so forth. You need to know how the product is used in the real world and what the stumbling blocks are in the wild.

Which parts break most often? I remember a laptop I had once had a broken keyboard. When I called the support line and started to explain what I needed, the technician said, "Ah, no problem. You need your keyboard replaced, we'll send someone out. The keyboards are easy to replace, it'll only take them a moment."

Apparently, people's keyboards on this laptop were always falling apart! The support technician knew this and knew how to take action. I'm sure he passed this on to the manufacturing department, but the point is -- he knew the stumbling blocks for his product and he knew that the modular design meant it wasn't going to be hard to replace. This was a big plus, since I couldn't afford to not have my laptop for long.

By getting your hands dirty with customer support, you get to see your products in the wild, being used or consumed by real people. You'll see what they complain about, what they really love and what they hate. You'll begin to see your product through your customers' eyes and understand its flaws, limitations and qualities.

Get "real-life" market understanding
Every marketer understands his or her target market, but how intimately you understand them varies. Getting involved with customer support teaches you a lot about your target market, and lets you intimately understand their needs, wants and motivations.

You'll learn not only what they want to use your product or service for, but why they want to use it. You'll learn the language they use to describe it and how they see it. There is no better way to hold a mirror up to your company than to talk to your customers about their experiences with your product.

Take our customer Carol, for example. I've helped on a few occasions with technical support. And she's taught me a lot about our market. While some of it isn't news, it's confirmation that our approach is correct. For example, here's a few things I know because of my support interactions with her:

• She needs support. Free technical support and the ability to talk to us during our support Q&A webinars is a big reason that she loves us.
• She loves to learn. She's constantly exploring and learning more about functions in the system she could use, and she really appreciates our business advice (not just tech advice). This has influenced our blog's direction and our technical documentation's direction to include a little background too.
• She doesn't know what a content management system (CMS) is. She just changes her website. This isn't a surprise and we don't use that acronym ourselves, but it's a good example of how you can glean knowledge of how customers talk and understand your product.

These traits are common to a large chunk of our market, and there are many more. We've got several customers that we have interacted with over time, and they've become archetypes of our target market.

Brett Welch is co-founder and director of marketing & technology evangelist of GoodBarry.