Marketing + Advertising

You have invested substantial dollars thus far to develop your company, your product, and your go-to-market strategy.

But are you prepared to continue investing in order to see the results? Campaigns by their very nature happen over time, and no initiative can be constrained to a discrete point in time.

Advertising must be seen repeatedly to generate interest and adoption. Sales must follow up on leads. Marketing must be integrated and must continue to be fresh and on-target if it is going to generate results.

You are only as good as your last point of visibility.

Even the most solidly conceived marketing plans can occasionally encounter unexpected snags – products that don’t meet development timetables, industry shifts, economic climate changes. Companies that recognize this fundamental truth also realize that it isn’t whether you encounter obstacles, it’s how you recover when you do.

What’s your Plan B?

Ultimately, the decision on strategic direction for any initiative belongs to the company.

However, no single person, no single department, and no single company has all the answers. A successful initiative is collaborative, and involves a community dedicated to its success, including customers, potential customers, agency partners, industry analysts, and press. The larger the circle of advocates, the greater the chance of record-breaking success. This is the same principle as social media, but it is much larger than social media.

So, who is in your circle?

The company that built the mold owns the market.

The company that comes along and breaks the mold takes their place. That company is the new visionary, fearless in the face of change, fearless in the face of risk, and has the depth of resources to stay the course. It builds something entirely new, desirable, and changes the rules of the game – for itself, for its customers, and for an industry.

Giants are big, mean, and nasty.

They have a reputation for gobbling up those who try to wake them, or worse yet, steal their market share. If you are going to wake the giant in the industry, you need a plan, an arsenal, and stealth. You have the courage to challenge the might of the giant.

Are you ready?

Nothing happens in a vacuum.

Any action a company takes in the marketplace today will generate a myriad of reactions from customers and competitors. A successful company not only knows this, but already has planned for these reactions and continues to stay a step ahead.

What reactions will your marketing initiative create?

Experience teaches us that you don’t fire a gun first, and then aim.

Likewise, in marketing, you are ill-advised to jump into tactics without first building a strategy. You might hit the mark, but the odds are against it.

The good news is that strategic is not synonymous with slow. In fact, a few hours or days spent developing a bullet-proof strategy can accelerate tactics by weeks and months!

The great news is, even if some tactics may already be underway, strategy can be implemented at any point in the process in order to improve results, and sharpen an initiative’s focus.