Need more leads?
Need more pipeline?
Need a stronger brand for recruitment?
Throw marketing at it! Marketing solves everything!
*Commercial ends*
I can easily imagine a commercial where instead of duct tape or magic sealer, they use marketing to solve all the world's problems.
While marketing can solve critical problems, I'm not sure if we apply it correctly to get the most from it.
Last week it came to my attention that the bathroom door from our bedroom has gotten squeakier. This wasn't a significant problem, but it was irritating me.
So I did what any grown man does, and I went to Home Depot. I scavenged for a solution and came upon one: WD40.
WD40 is a lot like duct tape as you can use it to solve many issues, issues it was never directly created to solve.
After applying a full squeeze of WD40 to my door hinges, I went outside for a walk. Upon arriving home, I was confused to see the door to the bathroom was shut; I was confident I had left it open.
Within five minutes, the issue became clear: I overcoated the door hinges, and now they sway too easily. This results in the door slowly closing each time I open it unless I put something in its way.
Buzzkill. I now have a new problem. I'm no further ahead than before starting.
Here are two distinct ways this relates to marketing:
- We can apply too much "marketing" to a problem that either creates a new problem (weeding through high volumes of leads) or solves it with minimal value derived (changing the font to be your company's specific on every page of your website is a little ROI activity)
- We can fail to solve the problem by throwing surface-level marketing (tactical) at a foundational issue (strategical)
Maybe my door didn't need WD40. Perhaps I could have used a more accurate and straightforward way to reduce the creaking.
Or maybe the people who rushed to build my apartment should have taken more time and detail with the door. But I can do nothing about that today, so I must figure out how to improve the situation.
My workaround? Putting a pair of pants on the ground in front of the door. This helps the door avoid slowly swinging shut.
My takeaway for you is to ensure the marketing solution fits the marketing problem. Strategical solutions overkill tactical problems, and vice versa.
Marketeer Insights ⚔️
- Marketing is not the best answer to every problem
- Match your marketing solution (strategical vs. tactical) to the problem
- Find the lowest AND most significant hanging fruit to apply your marketing problem solving to (some issues could best be left alone, like my door hinge)
How do you know when marketing could help a problem?
Or do you apply it like duct tape; to everything?
🧠 + ❤️ // JO