United We Market, Divided We Fail

Planning your new marketing strategy and tactics? MindEcology’s Darren Drewitz and Jed Jones have some tried-and-true ideas to help you make your effort success.

Marketing in a Decision-Making Vacuum Will Fail

Seasoned marketers know that good marketing does not happen when carried out in isolation from other people. Nor does it happen in a way that ignores the likely internal and exteral effects of your decisions.

Sure, it can be tempting to take the quick-and-dirty route of making marketing decisions that are ‘good enough’ for now. In other words: acting alone and making decisions without regard to the interactions among different components of your marketing machine. But we all know what happens when you take the easy route while cutting corners: results that are not much to be proud of.

Collaboration + Integration = Good Marketing

By contrast, good marketing incorporates both social and an organizational elements. To keep marketing activities coherent, relevant, and effective, two tools are at your disposal: collaboration and integration.

Below, MindEcology’s co-founders, Darren Drewitz and Jed Jones, share with you their thoughts on these two essential tools.

Collaboration (Among Stakeholders)

MindEcology co-founder Darren comes from an agency background, being a second-generation agency owner. He is a natural connector, putting the right person together with the right project. He understands the importance of planning, communication, and over-communication in carrying out marketing activities.

Marketing decisions need to take into account a range of factors, from our client’s vision, business model, and budget to strategic goals, internal and partner skill sets, and projected results. Unfortunately, many marketers simply follow the latest marketing tactic they come across  a ‘bright and shiny object’ , and bet the farm on it for the coming year.

Even if by chance it becomes successful in and of itself, the overall campaign will likely suffer because all key stakeholders were not consulted first and other useful tactics have been overlooked. Collaboration , both internally and with marketing partners , is a key to success.

Integration (of Campaign Components)

Meanwhile, co-founder Jed is regularly guided by his doctoral studies in systems thinking. Systems thinking involves understanding how the parts of any system ? such as a marketing department or a campaign , interact, inter-relate and inter-change information and resources in order to fulfill some purpose. In other words: a system, by definition, is a collection of parts working as an integrated whole. This is how systems thinkers view the world.

If you are doing marketing or advertising of any kind, you should be running at least 2-3 tactics or channels at once. Maybe even several more. But when talking to colleagues and clients in the marketplace, we consistently find that they struggle with getting the marketing mix right.

They wonder how much budget to allocate to one tactic over the next. Or which tactics to choose in the first place. Or which will work and how well. This type of problem is what systems thinkers like myself were born to solve. I tell them they need to integrate the components so that individual tactics work in harmony toward a common purpose for maximum return on investment.

As you get deeper into your 2017 planning season, do yourself a favor and take the time to bring all internal and external stakeholders into the fold when gathering ideas and requirements , including external marketing partners. Then, lay out all of your tactics on the table and get a sense for how each affects the others.

Which need to stay? Which need to go? Do all of this in the context of your budget, and keep your desired results in mind.

Collaboration + integration = good marketing. Which will inevitably result in much deeper peace of mind for you and your team in the coming year.

Contact MindEcology to learn more.