The Adaptive Marketer

So Is Your Year Half Empty, Half Full, Half Over or Half Begun?

Posted on 30. Jun, 2010 by Robert Rose in Online Marketing

One of my favorite comedians is Louis CK.   Last year, he was on Conan and did this bit about how Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy.  If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out – because it’s really funny – and dead on.

So, today marks the end of the first half of 2010?  How did your second quarter turn out?   How are you doing?   How’s your success coming?  Most importantly – How’s Your Strategy?

How You Doin?

So, I went back and did a Google Search and looked at some of the big predictions for 2010.   It’s funny how many of them actually say the same thing really.   Anyway,  roughly speaking – here’s what the headlines boil down to:

• Mobile will be big
• Social Media will be big
• Search Marketing will still be big
• Content Marketing will be big
• Email will still be big

Ummm… so, okay… so what’s different this year?

Dorothy, This Isn’t Recession Any More

We came into 2010 with great big sparkles in our eye.   Go back and look. Everybody was talking about growth, and how this year will be the year we start to expand again.  Heck, even I talked about how great it was going to be.

And for the most part it would seem that we’ve gotten half way there.  According to a recent eMarketer report after a flat year last year – we can expect a 11% increase in Advertising spending this year.  But then WPP Group weighed in and said – well, yeah, spending worldwide is up – but in the US it’s actually down.  Cue Pacman dying sound.

And, according to an Econsultancy report at the beginning of the year about half of marketers said they were going to increase overall marketing budgets in 2010.   Meaning, of course, half weren’t.  Funny how that works out.

So, which is it? Is our marketing half full or half empty.  Half over or half done?

Well… it’s a little of both I suppose.

Taking A Moment To Breathe – How’s Your Strategy Doing

Those who know me – know that I’m a glass is fully full guy… And in talking with clients, I’m encouraged by what I see out there.   Right now it feels a little like most organizations are really trying to be innovative with what they have.   So, that fits right in with that glass is half full.

But here’s the thing – now is a good time to review how your strategy is coming along; not how you’re measuring against any one or four or ten tactics.

I got an email from a potential client last week frustrated about growing their business.  She said:

“…from a marketing perspective, we feel like we’re doing everything right.  We’ve got the service where we want it, a new Web site generating traffic and the sales guys in place.  We’re buying the right key words.  But we’re not getting to the right buyer.  Our buyer doesn’t care about our service.  How do we change our content to get in front of him?”

So – addressing incremental changes to the tactics isn’t going to move the needle in this case.    This is only going to make things “a little bit better”.   This is really a much bigger question.  The real question is a strategy one.   How can we fundamentally change our marketing strategy to address this issue?

Don’t Be Afraid – Things Are Amazing!

We’re often afraid to change strategy mid-year.  Why?  Well, because we had this giant meeting in November of last year, and that’s when we set it.   Everybody (including our bosses) was in the room and signed off on it.  Now, if we change it – that strategy will have been a:  waste/wrong/fill in your own negative word here.  In short, we’re afraid to change it because it’s a big decision.

And, by the way, that’s exactly what your competition is thinking and doing.

Just remember how amazing things are right now.   Technology is making things easier for us as marketers.  It’s never been easier for us to get the tactics right.

You now know how to make the tactics better.   You know how to engage your audience.  You know how to improve the key word buy.  You know how to write and publish content to the Web.  You know how to get better SEO results.  You know how to use analytics to measure your advertising effectiveness.

You know?

So, if after you take a breath, you discover that your strategy isn’t working – that your year is half empty.  Change now.  Change your marketing strategy.  It is hard – and it’s important – and its fundamentally the way to add more abundance to your year.

Being from Texas, I can’t help but remember a wonderful quote by the famous Ad Man Morris Hite.   He said:

“there is more money wasted in advertising by underspending than by overspending.  Years ago, someone said that underspending in advertising is like buying a ticket half way to Europe.  You’ve spent the money – but you never get there”

As we kick off the second half of 2010 – here’s hoping we don’t underspend our time thinking how we incrementally improve our tactics – but instead keep adapting our strategy.

That makes for a year overflowing…

Happy 4th Of July

Tags: Marketing Strategy, Morris Hite