Several years ago some marketing consultants got smart and realized that CFO’s and other finance centric professionals live in a world that is focused on ROI (Return on Investment) and want to run spreadsheets that show the outcomes of dollars spent before committing to the expenditures. Since the money people make many decisions, these consultants and other “gurus” created programs that spoke the language of the finance department and created “ROI” algorithms to sell their services to these decision makers.
By speaking their language they were able to appear more intelligent (key word: appear) and win the business. Left-brainers everywhere rejoiced, as now these disciplines were under their control.
For too long marketing, business development, networking, direct mail, advertising, branding, PR (and more recently social media) were viewed by the left brain professionals as “the Black Arts”. They admitted that these were necessary, but since they were more creative and not always predictable, that they were some how less important to the success of a company than the more predictable departments on the org chart.
However, while this trend toward analyzing “return on investment” on everything makes people feel good — it has paralyzed many companies.
During a job interview years ago I told a CFO that sometimes to find success in marketing you have to try a variety of tactics. I used the old saying “throw some spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks!” The CFO responded that if a marketing campaign could not prove out results in advance, then his company would not do it. “No spaghetti could hit the floor!” The company hired a “ROI” oriented marketing manager (they did not hire me) and the company had minimal success in growing its image. The person they hired lasted 14 months on the job before the company changed direction, yet again.
While you do not want to waste dollars in promoting the image of your company, if you think there is a magic formula that will guarantee success, you will spend your life over thinking every opportunity and you will miss out on the allusive successes you seek. There is a difference between throwing money around and having an instinctive feeling on how to have an impact on your company’s positioning in the marketplace.
Instead of spending hours looking at the return on every investment on a spreadsheet, you should redefine the definition of ROI in regards to marketing.
ROI = Rely On Instincts.
Raising the visibility and brand of your company is not as easy as building a new website, joining Twitter, or sponsoring an industry conference. You need to fine tune your instincts or hire someone who knows the landscape of how all the “black arts” actually work together.
Take social media for an example: The term is getting a lot of attention in business circles, but it is not magic. Just like advertising, PR, networking, marketing, or branding alone will not make you rich…. social media is just another tool (although a trendy tool as this is being written). There are many “experts” advising companies on ROI in this medium, but I have seen few who can deliver the goods they present in a brochure. The real success here comes from hands on involvement of the company’s executives. You can’t outsource authenticity.
In a vacuum none of these marketing related disciplines will rocket your success toward the sky. But when strategically used together, they will have the long lasting power to help bring in new business.
If your instincts are rusty on these right-brain activities, then you need to do a little work and experimentation. You can learn to understand how to help promote the image of your firm by paying attention to the world around you. A good lawyer does not stop studying new laws and statutes that come into play and just rely on what they learned in school. They keep fine tuning their practice. (Note that it is called a “practice”, which means they never master it… but keep working on the whole process!). Likewise an accountant will not rely on tax law from 1989 to prepare their client’s return this year (at least you would hope not!).
Embrace the marketing world for the power it has to help your company, rather than try to cram it into a pre-structured spreadsheet. If the world worked that way then you would not be frustrated by lack of marketing success… and your competitors could buy the same structured program as you, and thus make you both a commodity, anyway!!! (Feeling like your product or service is becoming a commodity? Hmmmm, maybe there is a connection to the lack of creativity in your efforts!!!)
I expect this post will not be well accepted by those who want the world to be viewed in black and white… and by those who use fancy words and spreadsheets to win the business from left brain decision makers. But I am not attacking, as much as I am asking people to love the gray area for the possibilities for growth that are living there.
Thom Singer is a professional business speaker and the author of four books on the power of business relationships and networking. More information is available at http://www.thomsinger.com
Author: Thom Singer
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Mobile device news
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