Caught in a marketing undertow...

: Sherrie Perkovich

We've all seen it. Hopefully haven’t done it. Reactive vs. Proactive. Oh how easy it is to get caught up and not even know it. Head barely bobbing above the surface. Just trying to “get things done.” Sales barking. CEO barking. Asking the ever present question…why didn’t it work? The marketing/advertising was supposed to get people knocking on the door. What went wrong? Start by assessing the following from your marketing plan…
- Were you trying to say too much? How many messages did you have crammed into the ads?

- Were you not saying anything at all? Where is the brand positioning, were you not giving people a reason to respond?

- No brand awareness. Were you trying to stretch your advertising dollars too far and didn’t have enough air cover for your initiatives. If you’re a total unknown, in this day and age, its harder to break through.

- No money. Did you scrape and fight to get the budget you had. Did you try to do too much with it? You need to work smarter, not harder.

- Was your media strategy off target? Maybe you had a single focused message, with a good brand positioning with good dollars behind it. Possible that your media strategy was off target. Not reaching the right people in a way in which they will engage with your brand.

These are just a few of the questions you can begin to ask yourself as you ramp up for 2007 planning. Often times we are flying at a million miles a minute and forget to take a step back, pull your face away from the computer and breathe.

One of the harder things to do in marketing these days is keep your eye on the overall marketing strategy, goals and objectives while balancing branding with new media initiatives. Yes there are tactics to get us there, but don’t lose sight of your vision. Everything you do should support that vision as a company. And continually ask yourself, does what I’m doing get us there, or does it detract?