Marketing is tough. As marketers, we are tasked with building from scratch a perception of our brand in the minds of our prospects. With increasing levels of technology, that task is only getting more challenging. Even 10 years ago, marketers had nearly full control of their brand. However, today, through social channels, a consumer may have a fully-baked opinion (whether correct or incorrect) about a brand without ever having interacted with said brand. Scary stuff. Though it is important to point out that this is also an opportunity for marketers to engage with customers and utilize the power of user-generated content (which, by the way, can be MUCH stronger than the power of advertising). But that is the topic of another post. In this post, I want to offer 3 simple ways that you can create and maintain a stronger marketing program in today’s increasingly difficult landscape. Certainly, these are not the only elements to successful marketing, but in my humble opinion, they are useful ideas to keep in the back of your mind.
1. Be Fluid – The first step to a stronger marketing program is to be fluid. In this case, ‘fluidity’ means flexibility. To be a successful marketer, you need to understand changing trends, you need to understand new technologies, and most importantly, you need to understand your customers. All three of these are moving targets, and therefore it requires a flexible and fluid marketing team to keep pace. You won’t always be on the cutting edge of technology, or be on top of new marketing tactics, and that’s OK. By taking a fluid approach to designing your marketing program, you’ll eventually become a proactive marketer rather than a reactive one, which is something we are all striving for. Some companies have found it more difficult than others to move from a traditional mold to one with more fluidity, but in the coming years, those who choose not to make that change will find themselves out of business.
2. Ignore Best Practice… Sometimes – I say this one with a bit of a caution. We should always be considering best practices for our marketing efforts, and consulting new research to understand how the market is changing. What I mean here is that best practice isn’t enough. Just because something worked in a case study for another organization does NOT mean it will work for you… or maybe it will. The point is that we as marketers need to know our specific target. We need to do our own A/B testing on campaigns because maybe for our prospects, there will be a different outcome. Most importantly, we need to always be asking, “Why?” Why does this type of campaign seem to be more effective than another one? Why does this type of customer not move through our pipeline? The more we ask “why,” the more we will push ourselves to achieve greater marketing results.
3. Just Do It – Finally, I had to borrow Nike’s famous tagline, because it describes so well a common marketing problem that we all face. Far too often marketers (and I’m including myself in this equation) can find every reason in the world not to move forward with some aspect of their efforts. Whether you haven’t done enough testing, or you have too many cooks in the kitchen, something inevitably delays a good deal of marketing programs. The reality is that the fear of doing it wrong often prohibits us from doing something at all. Or, as Malcolm Gladwell suggests, when we are presented with too many choices, we tend to make no choice, or to keep putting it off as much as possible. Well, I am here to say to you, Just Do It! Of course I don’t mean that you shouldn’t put exhaustive planning into your marketing, but at some point, you have to just put something into action and see where it goes. More often than not, you will be able to make tweeks and changes as you go.
That’s it folks. Hopefully you find some value in these simple hints. What about you? What are the tricks you use to keep your marketing organizations performing effectively? Please comment below, I’d love to hear them!
Follow Bill Connolly on Twitter: @billconnolly
