After 25 years of doing this, there is still mystery in marketing for me. The thrill isn’t gone. In fact, it rolls in unexpectedly like a fog and mystifies me.
The last few days, I have seen a spike in hits to my website. While not a power user of Google Analytics, it’s like crack in my pipe, and even with an obsessive eye on the hits, I can’t explain why they’re happening – scientifically. My gut tells me it’s the culmination of several things I’ve been doing, boats rising in the tide, but I can’t prove it.
There are marketing practitioners who are more forensically inclined than I, who would probably say that if I had better tracking metrics, I’d have the answer to why I’m seeing an uptick. I disagree.
Good marketing is a lot like healthy living. You need to be disciplined in your diet, exercise regularly, keep your doctor’s appointments, maintain a healthy support network, manage your stress, be aware of your genetics and so forth. Were you to put all of your eggs in any one basket, you’d start moving backwards. I think there’s an analogy with marketing. You need to nurture your lists, refine your message, explore every platform (social media, direct marketing, public relations), seek the advice of and maintain healthy alliances, and most importantly have fun with it.
My gut tells me that the spike has to do with the discipline and effort that I’ve put into working on my business: forcing myself to make the Twitter chats and being a generous participant, pushing myself to write yet another article, another blog post, looking for additional speaking opportunities, scheduling monthly direct marketing campaigns that are different and creative enough to capture the attention of the recipients. And just like whipped cream on the sundae – it’s important to enjoy the process.
Bottom line: I do believe that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Do you agree or disagree? I’d love to know why.
I completely agree. Dawn, you have a wonderful, informative and humorous writing style; and your topics are relevant to businesses of all sizes and types. I enjoy reading them.
Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words.
I definitely agree with you Dawn. And you put it so beautifully. The spikes in analytics I can always point directly to something or another, but it’s that steady swell that sneaks up on you and you realize how far you’ve come. That never points to just one thing.
Agreed – and it’s the habit that is so important. It’s hard work to keep up the steady “done, what next?” slogging. The upside is the momentum that builds.
Your observations remind me of a quote I read recently from Bill Weldon, CEO of Johnson & Johnson: “If you manage the business well throughout the good times then the bad times are not quite so pronounced or profound.”
The same principle applies here don’t you think? Our tendency is to quickly react to our circumstances; to look for some quick fix, some silver bullet that’s going to bolster our efforts, but at the end of the day, it’s the well-thought-out disciplines we have committed to in times of deep reflection about our goals that produce the lion’s share of our success.
Don F Perkins
Hi Don, I’m laughing because for 20 years I’ve been saying “there is no silver bullet.” You are right it is the discipline and the desire to constantly work at being better. Nothing fancy.