Marketing plan: Don’t use the shotgun approach
Posted September 4th, 2009See if you recognize yourself in this description. You (or your department or your boss) have a million different marketing ideas. A radio spot here. An email campaign there. A special discount here. Sponsoring a community event there. A direct mail campaign here. You leap from one idea to the next, dabbling in all of them, when you find the time. And yet, despite the fact that each of them is a good idea – you don’t seem to get a consistent or acceptable return on your investment. Why isn’t it working?
It doesn’t work because none of them are a sustained effort. It’s the shotgun approach to marketing – just keep shooting and sooner or later you’ll hit something. But the problem is that if you do hit something, you only hit it once or twice because then you’re already on to the next idea.
This is where a written marketing plan comes into play. It’s no different than taking a road trip. You know where you are today. You know where you want to go. To get there, you need a map – a written plan. Otherwise, it is just too easy to get distracted and next thing you know, you’re pulling off to see the World’s Biggest Ball of Yarn. Sure, it sounds good at the time – but does it help you get to your final destination?
Identify the marketing tactics that will consistently work. Decide how many of them you can do consistently and well, based on the resources you have. Then…concentrate on doing them. Don’t let yourself get distracted. It’s a detour you don’t have time to take.
