Do you want to get better at what you do best or do something else entirely?
That’s an important question and one that is not asked nearly enough. All too often the line between creating efficiency and creating value is blurred so much that we hardly even care to make the distinction.
There is, however, a difference and it’s an important one that requires some serious thinking about how you approach your business, especially as more of what we do becomes digitized.
Oh, those poor moguls…
Media and entertainment companies, since the internet came on the scene, have been very poor investments. New media advocates tell us that it’s because traditional media companies are old and slow. The moguls themselves say it’s because people don’t want to pay for content.
Yet above the din and mindless babble, the evidence supports only one conclusion: It is the moguls misplaced egos, more than anything else, that does them in.
Hey, you got an attitude?
As marketing becomes increasingly mathematical, attitudes are often overlooked. They don’t fit easily into the ROI, PPC, tweeterific framework that is so popular these days.
Nevertheless, understanding people’s biases is essential to grasping how and what they will consume. Thinking seriously about attitudes is an essential skill for any marketer.
There are many today who advocate direct response marketing to the exclusion of other marketing channels. These are very silly people.
The problem isn’t that direct response marketing (which I define as advertising with a concrete offer and a measurable response mechanism) isn’t important and necessary. It’s just not sufficient. As a matter of fact, it isn’t even close.
The real issue isn’t what direct response measures, but what it doesn’t. Those that ignore other marketing channels either aren’t aware of the facts or are just not thinking clearly.
Who should drive strategy? The dreamers with the big ideas or the people on the ground?
This is an ancient debate that is still raging and can inflame passions on both sides. Those on the ground feel that the dreamers miss the practicalities of everyday operations while those in the C-suite lament that implementational people fail to see the big picture.
In truth, the major issues have been settled for decades and it’s a wonder why there is still so much fuss about it.
These days, everyone is struggling to catch up on digital marketing. In the rush, too much of the thinking is often left to impressive young webbies who seem to know a lot about all of the hubbub.
Your business on the web is far too important to leave to a bunch of technobabble. What’s more, in their quest to show off their dazzling skills, the webbies often forget that your digital strategy needs to fit into overall strategy. The result is usually wasted money and missed opportunities.
Here are a few simple rules that will help you get the most out of your web development and digital strategy.
I’ll admit it, I like to complain. I find it gratifying and self-affirming. It allows me to let off steam and the same time feel superior to whomever or whatever I’m complaining about.
Whining is another story. It stinks of weakness and has none of complaining’s therapeutic effects, which makes it a waste of time.
Complaining about whining, however, is a worthwhile sport. So here’s a guide to the most popular whines among media and marketing people this year.
The media and marketing industry, much like the financial industry before it, has become blinded by metrics that they don’t understand. Somehow, the notion of accountability has morphed into a misguided quest for the sure thing in the form of ROI metrics for just about everything.
This is silly. In actuality, when we talk about marketing ROI, individual actions don’t account for much. What really matters is portfolio performance and that’s what both buyers and sellers need to focus on.
To see why, we only have to look at the mess the financial industry made when they ignored the simple fact that every investment involves risks that can’t be quantified.
Einstein said, “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex… It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.”
In a similar vein, I often tell my analysts that I want them to be dumber. The problem is that the people I hire tend to have achieved some measure of academic success, which they attained by impressing idle professors how sophisticated their thinking was.
Stupid people, on the other hand, look for what is obvious and useful and therefore can often accomplish more. Over the years, I’ve come up with some ways to help smart people to become dumber. Here’s a few of them:
Advertising agencies, once a cottage industry made up of small innovative firms, have consolidated into enormous firms with global scale and massive reach yet still manage to not make much money.
What’s missing is a businesslike approach. That is, agencies aren’t run like other businesses, but as idea factories and the logical consequence is that there is an oversupply of meaningless ideas- lots of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
The solution is for marketing services companies to operate as money making enterprises whose primary objective is to capture value in the marketplace. That means adopting the business best practices of this century.
