Selling Snow Shovels in July
Ever see a TV ad after Christmas that is still promoting a Christmas sale? Or hear a radio ad for a seasonal product that is now way out of season? This is not just poor execution, it is the manifestation of a walk-away mentality towards marketing.
There was a time when marketing was coming up with a message/campaign, setting a budget, and selecting what medium to use. You would schedule radio/tv buys, send your design ideas to a graphic artist and basically hand off your project until your next campaign.
That era is over.
There are several reasons why ...
- It is cheaper, faster and easier to change the message in all mediums. As such, your competitors (especially the larger ones) can push out new advertising concepts in many different mediums on a consistent basis. Consider this one example; you shoot a video, the video is posted to a website, broadcast on a TV ad, elements of it are used in digital billboard campaigns, and the audio is used in radio advertisements - and if its compelling enough, it may become a viral video.
- Audiences are easily bored. They have very likely been exposed to one of your ads - probably multiple times. As such, they need to be re-stimulated. Bludgeoning them with the same message over and over again is largely why people change the channel. However, with new messages and stories, you'll trigger their curiosity and they'll tune in. This requires discipline, structure, and above all, a brand strategy.
- The previous points discuss traditional mediums, however they don't include advertising methods that were never "walk away marketing" to begin with. Grassroots marketing, web marketing, social media, etc, all require constant attention. Take social media for instance - you can't create a Twitter account and not tweet. You can't start a Facebook business page and not be interested in conversations with your audience.
Assuming that you have a brand strategy that dictates your differentiators, messages and tools (if you don't, we need to talk), the next step is to have a marketing plan based on creating useful content - not just a campaign or media buy. This typically means having someone dedicated to creating and distributing content and following up with conversations that are created.
