Stop Shoulding on Your Marketing
You know you should be more active on Twitter and LinkedIn. You know you should have a good design that matches your current branding. You know you should make the perfect 30-second spot for TV. You should have a full page black and white newspaper ad, one for the national rags and one for the local papers. You should definitely mail a VHS tape to all your customers.
“Wait… what? VHS? My company needs the first two, but we’re pretty sure we won’t get much ROI from some of those. We’re not even sure our customers read newspapers! Is spending all that money on a TV-buy right for my medium-sized business. Plus, aren’t those kind of old school ways of thinking?”
What goes around comes around
Well, here’s the deal. Every awesome idea is eventually “old school.” Sometimes old school works, sometimes it’s just tired. I just want to make you think about your approach.
Do you find yourself feeling behind, because there is always some new marketing channel or platform out there that you feel like you ABSOLUTELY MUST be doing?
Cut the shoulds
Well, stop shoulding on yourself! All these shoulds usually fit into the category of tactics. Tactics are great, and you will need good ones. But, if you are feeling like you can’t even get a handle on how to tell your own business story, it’s not the place to start.
Think about your reaction to the list above. At some point in time, your business MAY need any or all of the above. But listening to all the shoulds has you focusing on the wrong stuff. It may not make business sense to just start with Twitter or Facebook or a mobile app.
Change is the only constant
The common thread to all the gazillion marketing options out there is that your media mix and even how you frame your messaging will be constantly changing. What’s hot today may not be so hot tomorrow. And then maybe it will be hot again. Vinyl records are making a big comeback…
What you need to cultivate in the face of all this change is your own adaptability. If you know who and what your business is, if you keep your focus on your customers and where they are engaging most, then you can adapt your tactics to meet them where they are at.
Trying to do everything for everybody is just throwing money away. Be smart, be agile, be ready for things to go wrong, be always willing to grow and change, and be prepared to adapt because the world is constantly changing.
Change your way of thinking
What three things are you doing just because you feel like you are supposed to? When was the last time you thought about how each is adding value and helping you reach your goals and objectives?
