A few months ago I sat through a one hour "Go-To-Meeting" from a marketing firm in New York. It was a very good presentation, from what was a top-notch agency.
I did, however, squirm in my seat for most of the presentation. I really don't have the time to sit though a presentation that I have seen many times from many agencies. I was being "nice." When the presentation was over, the asked for my thoughts. I told them that their business model was wrong for the current economy. No one has the budget for a full-blown agency, doing extensive market studies, customer focus groups, long term market planning, or complete end-to-end services. Not only do we not have the budget, we don't have the time.
They question I ask myself everyday, is "What I am going to do TODAY to generate customer interest in my product, a lead, or a sale?" It's about today, and tomorrow, and maybe next week. Most companies are living literally day to day. Businesses are being shuttered everyday. We need sales, we need them now. How can I find the customer who is wants to buy, but needs to feel very good about a decision to buy, today? What can I do to help the sales force make one more call, today?
You could call this guerrilla marketing, tactical marketing, ninja marketing, or even TODAY marketing. The point is we as marketers have to try a series of small strikes to see what works. Better to try five things fast and one of them stick, than try one for ninety days and see it fail. We don't have ninety days. No one does.
Regardless of the recent Wall Street ups and downs this isn't over yet. We need to keep operating like the lives of our companies and careers are hanging by a thread. Because, they are.
What are you going to do, today? More importantly, what am I going to do?
Showing posts with label Marketing Strategy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marketing Strategy. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
The Urgency for Original Thought
I attended a trade show in Las Vegas in the early this year. One of my duties as a V.P. of Marketing was to meet with the media, specifically various members of the trade press. During one of the conversations, a magazine rep was going over their focus on sustainability in 2010 and 2011. After listen to sustainability this, and sustainability that, I asked, “What does the term sustainability mean to you and your readers?”
The man was stumped. He knew the newest buzz word, but he could not articulate it into a defensible argument. Finally, he said something about “Using products and …….that are good for the environment…..?”To help the gentleman save face, I said, “I just asked because there seem to be differing opinions on what, exactly “sustainability" is.
The truth is even the U.N., the main proponent of sustainability, does not have a precise definition. The first sentence in definition from Wilkepedia seems to fit best. “Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to endure.” It doesn’t say much. That really doesn’t excuse anyone from chattering about something they know little about.
Lenin envisioned a world run by experts. We are there. Someone is touted as an expert, and most people’s minds shut down. “Someone smarter than me has already figured this out….” At one time Americans were very skeptical of “experts.” Newspapers were seen, and known, to be propaganda outlets for robber barons and bankers. Healthy skepticism was part of the American way of life. Maybe that was due to the wild days of snake-oil salesman, miracle devices and cures that simply did not work. Whatever it was, we need it back.The painful lessons of following the herd and succumbing to group think are evident in history, including very recent history.
The world’s financial “experts” did not see the crash of 2008 coming. The same experts told us that they are the ones to guide us out, we just have to hand over a few trillion dollars. (They were a little short at the moment.) Someone published a book called The World is Flat, and all the possible negatives of globalization were swept aside. Tom Peter’s wrote In Search of Excellence and “teaming” became the new business fashion. Only later did we find some parts of the book were fiction. Lean, Six Sigma, ISO9000, TQMS, web stores – you better have one, email newsletters, the list of ideas, trends, buzz phrases, paradigm-shifting (remember paradigm?) all at their time were the latest in forward-thinking business. There is a reason business books have the lowest value in the used book market - they have little value past their publication date. There are as many new ideas and experts to go along with them, as there are hairs on the heads of people who follow them.
Over and over again people fall into the trap of letting someone else think for them. If you hand over your brain, you might as well hand over your wallet too.
My personal eternal truths:
• Bubbles burst
• The more dollars in circulation, the less valuable they are.
• Government intervention makes things worse.
• Banks’, like casinos', goal is to keep your money.
• The majority is always wrong.
If there ever was a time that we need to "grow a pair" as a society it is now. If there ever was a time for original, creative thought in the business world, it is now. The great success stories of the first three quarters of the Twentieth Century did not happen because Thomas Edison or Henry Ford, went to a seminar, or read a business self-help book. Neither one had an MBA hanging on the wall. They were American originals.
Think for yourself.
The man was stumped. He knew the newest buzz word, but he could not articulate it into a defensible argument. Finally, he said something about “Using products and …….that are good for the environment…..?”To help the gentleman save face, I said, “I just asked because there seem to be differing opinions on what, exactly “sustainability" is.
The truth is even the U.N., the main proponent of sustainability, does not have a precise definition. The first sentence in definition from Wilkepedia seems to fit best. “Sustainability, in a broad sense, is the capacity to endure.” It doesn’t say much. That really doesn’t excuse anyone from chattering about something they know little about.
Lenin envisioned a world run by experts. We are there. Someone is touted as an expert, and most people’s minds shut down. “Someone smarter than me has already figured this out….” At one time Americans were very skeptical of “experts.” Newspapers were seen, and known, to be propaganda outlets for robber barons and bankers. Healthy skepticism was part of the American way of life. Maybe that was due to the wild days of snake-oil salesman, miracle devices and cures that simply did not work. Whatever it was, we need it back.The painful lessons of following the herd and succumbing to group think are evident in history, including very recent history.
The world’s financial “experts” did not see the crash of 2008 coming. The same experts told us that they are the ones to guide us out, we just have to hand over a few trillion dollars. (They were a little short at the moment.) Someone published a book called The World is Flat, and all the possible negatives of globalization were swept aside. Tom Peter’s wrote In Search of Excellence and “teaming” became the new business fashion. Only later did we find some parts of the book were fiction. Lean, Six Sigma, ISO9000, TQMS, web stores – you better have one, email newsletters, the list of ideas, trends, buzz phrases, paradigm-shifting (remember paradigm?) all at their time were the latest in forward-thinking business. There is a reason business books have the lowest value in the used book market - they have little value past their publication date. There are as many new ideas and experts to go along with them, as there are hairs on the heads of people who follow them.
Over and over again people fall into the trap of letting someone else think for them. If you hand over your brain, you might as well hand over your wallet too.
My personal eternal truths:
• Bubbles burst
• The more dollars in circulation, the less valuable they are.
• Government intervention makes things worse.
• Banks’, like casinos', goal is to keep your money.
• The majority is always wrong.
If there ever was a time that we need to "grow a pair" as a society it is now. If there ever was a time for original, creative thought in the business world, it is now. The great success stories of the first three quarters of the Twentieth Century did not happen because Thomas Edison or Henry Ford, went to a seminar, or read a business self-help book. Neither one had an MBA hanging on the wall. They were American originals.
Think for yourself.
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