As every good doctor knows, sometimes the best course of action is no action at all.
But as marketers, we can find it hard to recommend doing nothing. We often feel that something - anything - is better than nothing at all. As a result we can cause real damage to the organizations we work with.
Let’s talk about why that happens and how we can do our best to stop it happening in future.
Why We Default To Activity
At heart there’s a really simple reason why we end up busy undermining the very organizations we are supposed to be helping:
It’s really easy to do stuff and it’s much harder to think clearly about what we should be doing and how we should be doing it.
Let’s take Google AdWords as an example. Anyone can build a Google AdWords campaign. That’s hardly a surprise. The platform is designed by a large company that makes money when you build and launch a campaign. Of course it’s easy. If it was hard then someone at Google would be getting fired.
So there’s a whole industry of people out there making it fantastically easy to spend money on doing ‘marketing’.
But there’s also another reason: action bias.
Research has shown that when facing a penalty kick in soccer, a goalkeeper is best off standing still. And yet all over the world keepers dive to the right and left. Why?
Because they feel they have to ‘do something’.
We marketers frequently find ourselves in the same situation. If anything, it is made worse by the fact that so much marketing is done in public. You name the activity, some of your misguided competitors are probably doing it. Which in turn leads to all sorts of internal and external pressure to ‘stop them beating us out there in the market’.
Result: activity for the sake of it.
Curing Our Activity Addiction
Now let me first state that I am NOT saying that doing things is a bad idea. On the contrary, I am a firm believer in doing things and have a zero tolerance attitude to marketing ‘consultants’ who do nothing but talk all day long.
However, I am a believer in doing the right things. As noted marketing soothsayer Bill Wyman once observed, ‘an inch is better than a mile in the right direction’.
Ultimately what is really important isn’t (of course) doing nothing, it’s having the confidence to reject bad ideas no matter where they come from. Because bad ideas can get us into a lot of trouble. In fact many marketing departments spend large amounts of time and money actively damaging the very brand they should be promoting.
When we engage in activity without first engaging our brain, bad things happen, including but not limited to:
Spending money for no obvious reward. Activity usually costs money, and money is a limited resource.
Wasting time and effort, also for no obvious reward. Time and effort are also limited resources.
Damaging staff morale. When we engage in activity that half the team know is misguided, or ignore talent in the room and instead follow the random hunches of senior employees, we end up losing our best people.
Creating a false impression of the organization. A brand needs to be carefully nurtured. Engaging in activity is easy, changing direction is not. First impressions last. In other words - once you have given your audience the wrong impression of your product and organization, it can be hard to take it back.
Damaging faith in marketing as a function. If we throw ourselves into random activity that does not deliver ROI, don’t think for a moment that cool heads will clearly identify what went wrong. Marketing will get the blame. We always do.
So how do we avoid this situation? Simple: clearly define objectives and targets.
If we don’t have meaningful objectives and targets, then anything and everything has the potential to be ‘a good idea’. And when that happens persuasive people, people who write cheques, or those particularly dangerous types who combine both those attributes get to call the shots.
Instead have a very clear picture of where the business wants to be in a year. Have a clear go-to-market plan, an ideal customer profile, and meaningful objectives that make clear sense. Ensure that meeting those targets by definition will lead on to success for the business as a whole.
We now have something very important. A set of agreed objective criteria by which we can measure and evaluate any proposed activity. Suddenly the conversation is very different, and even more so when we factor in limited time and resources.
Now we are asking the real questions that matter in marketing. Who do I need to talk to? What do I want them to believe? How do I best get my message across?
When we’ve answered those questions with a positive marketing plan, we are confident in saying “no” to ideas that won’t help us. That includes ideas that will positively damage the organization.
And strange as it may seem, just getting that far is a big step forwards for many of us.
Repeat after me: “first, do no harm”
*I know these words aren’t actually in the hippocratic oath, but everyone thinks they are and it’s a snappy title
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