Marketing Is Not A Buffet.

Marketers face a lot of choices, verging on way too many. The channels, platforms, networks, touchpoints, and tactics in the mix are astounding. All of these marketing elements spread out in front of us can often resemble a buffet of choices.?

In marketing terms, what we put on our plate matters. A lot. So we must choose carefully to avoid the trap of treating it as if it were simply navigating a buffet.?

STRATEGY IS NOT TAKING WHAT OTHERS TAKE

Think and consider how people select what food ends up on their plate. They tend to look at what others are taking as a signal for what they should load up. Perhaps they know something we don’t. It must be good if they went for it. So, we take some too.??

It is no different when marketers look over the shoulders of other marketers. We mimic what we see our peers doing, justified mostly by hearsay. Call it FOMO or keeping up, but marketers are influenced by this more than we care to admit.? Far from strategic, it distracts.

IT IS ALL ABOUT SHORT-TERM GRATIFICATION

We all make horrible choices at a buffet. Our short-term impulses take over squashing all willpower as we gravitate to carbs and calories over carrots and cauliflower.? Even though it might end up in a bellyache or extra pounds, we do it anyway.?

Marketers behave with the same short-term thinking at the cost of longer-term gains in customer relationships. We risk dollars down the road for nickels and dimes today. The real goal here is balance kept in mind before attempting to hit quarterly targets at any cost.??

WE END UP LEAVING A LOT ON OUR PLATES

Think about when you sit down and dig in. Everyone always has a fair amount pushed aside or ignored. You’ve reached a point where, although there’s food left, you’re done.? Not because you are full or satiated. You might go up for another round. However, you’ve given up on those poorly made choices.?

The marketing parallel is the bright-shiny or trendy things we put on our marketing plates. Like our questionable food choices, we push aside these tactics or platforms and hope it all gets cleaned up when no one is looking. (Insert Clubhouse joke here)

WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT NUTRITION AND SUSTENANCE

Let’s agree the nutritional value of choices made at a buffet is, at best, sketchy.?

Now, if you are a 7-year-old and want Jello as your main course, you are likely unaware of what that means.? Yet, as adults, we continue to make conscious decisions to avoid healthier choices when presented with tasty but less nutritious alternatives.??

Let’s not forget that a buffet for many is where it is ok to have a cheat day from dieting etc. The buffet is what we seek for food coma-inducing indulgences. We rarely demonstrate discipline unless we avoid the whole thing in the first place.?

The point here is we need to think about sustenance over the superfluous on our marketing menu.? We must test, explore and sample.? We won’t know until we try.? However, keeping the correct proportions in mind is critical.

THINK TASTING MENU TO COMPLIMENT THE MAIN COURSE

In terms of testing and sampling should be more akin to a tasting menu to complement a steady flow of proven main course winners.??A tasting menu typically has better structure, purpose (and flavor) when compared to the random assortment at your average buffet.??

There are many opinions and formulas re 80/20 or 70/20/10 ratios with a proportional weighting of our efforts.? Structured testing with a more significant?amount of reliable mainstays making up most of the mix should be the goal.??

It’s is not new or radical thinking here. Unfortunately, it is always about?wider distribution, adoption, and discipline in practice across marketers and marketing departments.?

RADICAL CHANGE IN MARKETING MEANS MAXIMIZING WORK NOT DONE?

Borrowing from an Agile Manifesto principle, we must strive for simplicity and maximize work not done. Meaning avoid waste in our work. The things that do not create value and take attention off of what?does.?

The buffet plate is an example of waste we can see right in front of us.? With our work, it is not always as apparent.? Marketers are continually battling to break our old traditional cycles in management and execution focused on outputs.??Especially as we try and manage growth in our V.U.C.A (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) business environment.? But it is far from easy.?

Working smarter means not repeating our past. It means not going back to the trough to behave the same way all over again. It means a new focus on what’s important. A focus on the value we create for customers and our business.? Doing more of the critical work with less and less “keeping busy” work.??

The closer we get to consistently delivering true value, we will know we have maximized the right work we are no longer doing.?

CHANGE FOR MARKETING MEANS A NEW MINDSET

Change management in marketing starts with a mindset for real change.? It’s a mindset that values sustenance, sustainability and, unrelenting pursuit of effectiveness that we can measure.? ?

It means breaking free from our thinking that marketing is all as simple as a buffet. It means unlearning inherited ways of working where we continually load up on too many choices we know won’t digest well.? It also means sharing and collaborating, spicing things up by infusing specialists with a generalist understanding, and cross-pollinating generalists with more specialist knowledge.? ?

Yes, this means real evolution and perhaps some revolution in marketing.? It won’t happen standing in line at the buffet.

This article first appeared on the Level C Digital - Change Marketing Blog

Photo by Ulysse Pointcheval on Unsplash