Band-Aid Marketing: Stop it and Level Up!
When a new or established company or business reacts to a situation or sales crisis by developing a new idea, campaign or project without any thought or attention to aligning to their brand story or using their brand voice, they are investing effort, resources and money that is wasted. This is what I call band-aid marketing.
This idea of a quick fix for the moment results in unaccounted for dollars and resources that could have been invested into fixing “base brand” contingent elements that should have been in place long before spending further marketing dollars.
You need to fix the foundation of your business before you can fix what it’s supporting, whether it’s your current problem of low sales, a new product launch or a new service.
The marketing component of your business is a layer that sits on other supporting layers that need to be firmly in place first if you want to be successful in business. More importantly, you must optimize these components so you are running at the highest level possible in order to achieve a true return on your investment.
If you’re happy running at 50% optimally and make enough revenue to feel like you’re successful, that might be ok for some, but to me it’s lazy and ignorant. It means you have a 50% margin to improve on operations, processes, culture, team building, sales and more. This means your focus is not on customer delight and more on your own satisfaction of doing a menial job which shows a lack of care about your business. This mindset is not sustainable.
“Marketing is a process, not an event”
Do you want to build your business? Level Up.
This points to the “You don’t know what you don’t know” theory (originally credited to Donald Rumsfeld). It’s a trigger for realization; an “uh huh” moment — that you have a potential opportunity to learn or do something actionable that will position you at a “jump point” allowing you to escalate or slingshot you to your next level plateau. That uh-huh moment is a great feeling! If you are interested enough to get to this point then it’s an indicator that you got your mojo back and want to reboot.
So how can you fix something if you don’t know it’s broken? It should be easy to see just by looking at your website or by having a professional assess it along with your brand creative and marketing collateral. The internet made it quick and easy to give you the most accessible way to judge whether you want to do business with a company. You’ll know in 15 seconds whether a company values design and marketing. If you as a business owner want to learn more, you can. It’s that easy and I think some people forget that the internet is like a magical place where you can see and learn everything about a person or business.
Can you self test? Can you learn how to level up? I would think so but that’s why marketing and business consultants exist. We ask the right questions. We create language, provide context and arm you with tools to move forward and build.
A good business person delegates to experts and professionals to do their job best while you do yours. It doesn’t take a marketing expert to tell you if your brand or message is clear, if your design is bad or if your entire brand experience is negative. You should know already if you need or want help. And this should make you aware of what you don’t know so you can get someone who knows how to help you fix your business.
This is why marketing is a process and not an event. Invest in your business. Discover who you are as a business. Define your core values. Create your vision. Give your brand a voice. Your website is your primary channel that levels the playing field so you can compete with anyone. Don’t take it for granted!
