Marketing 12-Step Program

"Hello. My name is John and I'm a marketing conformist."

It seems there are some defining characteristics of companies that struggle with marketing. Are they addicted to making the same mistakes over and over? Is there a cure? How can they come to understand the challenges they face? Why do they feel they have to conform to conventional wisdom?

Here's a 12-Step Program to consider. Good luck.

1. Admit you have a problem.
Ask yourself this question. "What are we going to do this year that is different than what we did last year?" If the answer is nothing, then you have a problem. You may very likely have Marketing Malaise. It's brought on by following the lead of your competitors versus charting your own path. It can also be contracted from previous marketing directors, and no amount of Purell can prevent you from catching it. Fortunately, it's a curable. Read on.

2. Identify your co-dependents.
It is very likely you're not alone in your Marketing Malaise. Odds are good you have people around you who, unknowingly, are keeping you in the same old pattern of marketing strategy and tactics. It could be an obvious person like your CEO — trapped in the past because no one has ever challenged their conventional wisdom. It could be your competitors or your channel partners or your sales counterpart or media reps. Co-dependents can be anywhere. You can spot them easily by paying attention to the number of times they present you with a new idea. No new ideas? Then count them as co-dependents.

3. You don't know what you don't know.
This is a critical step. You must admit that there are things you and your executive team do not know. Yes, it's hard. Especially when there is someone on the team who says, "I've been doing this job for 37 years. I know what our customers want." Ignore that person. Actually, stay as far away from them as possible. They are highly contagious and can infect your entire senior management team with a sneezed sentence.

There's only one cure for 'You don't know what you don't know.' Research. You must do some discovery with your customers. You must make an intentional effort to come to understand why they buy from you. And get ready for this! You're going to learn things you didn't know. And best of all, you're going to find they are not buying your product for rational reasons at all. No. They're buying because they have an emotional connection to your company, product or, shall we even say it out loud, your brand!

Beware though. There are people within your company who do not want to know anything new. No matter what they say they want to know. They've worked hard over the years at becoming competent. New information will challenge their competency. Change is scary. Go gently.

Discovery should be left to professionals. First, they know how to get to the real insights. Second, if you do it internally, it will be biased. And in the end, none of your co-dependents will believe you. Spend the money. Hire the pros.

4. Focus
Another tough one. You cannot be all things to all people. And you know what? Your customers don't want you to be. No, they want you to do what you do best and keep doing it for them. Your challenge is to determine what it is you do best, then find more people like the customers you have and do it for them. Once you're secure in your product and profit, then you can seek out new products and niches.

5. Find a partner.
You can't do this alone. Not only will the research be impossible to do by yourself, arriving at a brand message that doesn't sound like it was written by a committee will be impossible without a professional communications agency. You don't have to look far to see companies that have shunned this advice. In fact, you need only look at the nearest trade magazine for ads that have been honed by a butter knife. Keep them by your bedside to help you fall asleep.

6. Tell your story
I'm not talking about the history of the company. No one cares about that. What they care about is why people do business with you. Potential customers what to know what makes you special. They want a reason to connect. They want to feel loved. They want to feel important. They want to know that you care about them more than any other company possibly could.

Odds are good you have a good story to tell. After you complete the discovery step, you'll likely have the insights you need to craft a compelling one. Again, find someone to help you. Corporations have a long history of trying to brand themselves. Most often it comes out titled "Mission Statement." How many of your customers have purchased your product because of your mission statement?

7. Do fewer things, better.
A definitive sign of Marketing Malaise is the laundry list of tactics. In fact, some Marketing Malaise sufferers have come to believe a list of tactics constitutes a marketing plan. The challenge is to determine the objective (notice we used the singular 'objective' versus the plural 'objectives'). More than one objective is no objective.

Then make the conscious decision to take the precious resources you have been alloted and actually do something that will have an impact. Don't do ten things, take the same dollars and do three things. You'll find those three things, executed well (because you actually spent enough money to do them right) will have five times the impact of the ten things you would have done.

8. Follow your own path.
It's your company. It's your career. It's your chance to do something that will make a difference. Just because the person before you did it that way doesn't mean you should. Try something different. Test something new. You can't make a wholesale change all at once. And besides, no matter how compelling you are, your C-level executives will think you have lobsters crawling out your ears if you attempt to change everything in one year. Pick your battles, think it through and move forward. The worst that can happen is you get fired.

9. You can't manage what you don't measure.
Answer the 'Butts in seats' question. How will you measure success? How will your management measure success? What metrics will they measure you by?

When you're putting your plan together, make sure you are measuring everything you possibly can. With the Web, it is far easier to put metrics in place that will give you a dashboard of data you can share with your sales team and executive leadership.

10. Learn to fail successfully.
You can fail unsuccessfully. In fact, that's what most marketing people are used to. But with the appropriate metrics in place you can fail successfully. With each marketing initiative you learn from your mistakes. What a wonderful idea! With this mindset, you put as many initiatives into the marketplace as possible within the shortest time possible. The more you do, the faster you learn what works well and what doesn't work so well. Remember, you're not trying to determine what marketing efforts work, you're trying to determine what marketing efforts work best.

11. Get back on the horse.
You will fail. Accept that at the beginning but don't let it slow you down. Never doubt that you will prevail while at the same time accept the brutal facts of your current reality. This idea got Admiral James Stockdale through a North Vietnamese prison for several years. Surely it will help you get through your marketing challenges.

12. Celebrate your success.
This is not a time to be modest. While you live and breathe marketing, others within your company do not. They have their own burdens to bear. So when you have a win, share the news. Celebrate the victories immediately, because tomorrow there will be some other challenge you must tackle. Let people know where you and your team have had success. In fact, share some of the challenges along the way. Who knows, you may inspire them to seek out their own 12-Step Program.