Yesterday, I said marketing can be boring. And it really can be. In fact, boredom is the number one symptom of a bigger problem: wasted opportunity. Marketing gets off track when the company’s message or brand (or both) lack a strategically developed base.
If you skip strategy, most people fail to be personally (not financially) invested in the message. You can push a misguided or misaligned message for years (and many companies do) without ever realizing great success.
If the core message is off the mark, the people you most need to connect with — employees, prospects and customers — don’t react in the way you expect. When you fail to get the reaction you were hoping for, a dual disconnect occurs. You don’t connect with people, and they don’t connect with you. What happens when you don’t succeed? Disillusionment, distraction, apathy, blame and boredom.
That’s why strategy always works better than hope. You get personally invested right at the start. Goals that make sense drive the message and connect with people because they are based in relevant, mutual reality. The result is the opposite of boring — it’s exciting. Connection is exciting for both your company and your customers.
Kelly Hobkirk - teaching marketers how to harness strategy, goals, reality, and purpose to connect and do better work.
Kelly Hobkirk has been helping companies succeed in creative ways for nearly 25 years. His work has been featured in Time Magazine, and books by Rockport and Rotovision. Get exclusive articles when you sign up for his monthly newsletter.