One of the first things I learned in the marketing world was the importance of evaluating publications that I was thinking of proposing for our clients’ advertising campaigns. Once unknown, the world of BPA circulation statements became the norm for me. I evaluated media kits to look at how each publication broke down its audience. Were they the people our clients wanted to reach? Did they ask to receive the publication or was it available on a doctor’s office table?
Not thinking it would be anything apart from logical, I carried that mode of evaluation and thinking into all other facets of marketing that I learned (and I continue to do so as there is always more to learn). You can probably imagine my surprise, then, when I started seeing stories in the blogosphere and on Twitter about how companies that didn’t try everything online were either scared or just way behind the times.
For example:
As recently as August 2011, Erik Deckers wrote a post called, “Why Companies Are Afraid of Social Media”
Back in 2009 Mack Collier wrote a post called “Why is your Business Afraid of Negative Blog Posts?”
Also in 2009, BL Ochman wrote an article called “The Top Six Reasons Companies Are Still Scared of Social Media”
More recently, Mitch Joel wrote a post called, “You Are Free To Try Everything,” noting that it is much easier to do so in the online world than it was/is with more “traditional” marketing channels.
Now I will admit that maybe there are some companies out there who get frozen with fear. After all, it’s almost impossible to consider any one sector of the marketing world a 100% known entity, right? Things are changing daily, sometimes by the minute. And the unknown, well, it can be scary. Especially if something like your livelihood depends upon it.
But I would wager there are a few companies out there who are refraining from social media marketing or email marketing or whatever else because they actually know that it will not benefit them as much in the long run. It’s not a fear that xyz won’t work. It’s actually a full-fledged, fruit of research conclusion.
Let me give you an example. A lot of people were saying a couple of years ago that if you weren’t hopping onto the Foursquare wagon, you were really going to regret it. There was not a nuanced segment to this argument. You either were going to try Foursquare or you were a scaredy cat, essentially. But let’s say you’re a B2B medical products manufacturer. Apart from letting your friends know that you have checked in to work, how is Foursquare going to help your company? Are people going to jump into your factory and buy something? Probably not. You probably don’t need it.
Here’s another one. Let’s say you’re any type of company anywhere doing anything. You’ve done some social media research and you’ve discovered that while there are a lot of videos on YouTube relevant to your industry, there’s hardly any action on Twitter or Facebook. Your competitors aren’t there, your customers aren’t there, there is no buzz, there’s just a whole lot of nothing. Are you just being afraid if you fail to jump onto social media at that point? I don’t really see it that way.
There are two other stories that feed into this myth. The first is the celebration of failure that exists in today’s world, and the second is a failure to understand actual costs of marketing tactics that on the surface appear to be free. Let’s talk about that a bit more.
I failed! Woot!
A lot of the people who argue that you should try everything in your marketing efforts are the same people who believe that failure is something to be sought in the business world. If you throw yourself into something and it doesn’t work, well, at least you learned something, right?
Take a look at this recent post by Danny Brown, where he indicates that the Toyota Twitter fiasco is actually the fault of the agency and not the brand. If that is the case and you’re the agency that got Toyota such bad PR, is failure looking like something to celebrate? I’m thinking probably not.
The fact is, there is a ton of pressure on marketers to make sure their efforts reap benefits, not yuck. The idea that you should try everything because failure is just a learning experience has never struck me as being spot on.
But social media is free!
Again, this is a common misconception. Signing up for Twitter is freer than the freest bird. But those people you hired to run your Twitter initiative? Probably not free. Most aspects of blogging are free. Finding someone who can create content for you? Probably not free. For everything that you try, you need people (or your own time) to make it work. Your time is not free either. Or it shouldn’t be anyway. Before you try something, you need to consider what will happen if it actually works really well. You also need to consider how much time (aka money in the business world) you want to invest before you quit.
Don’t feel like you need to try everything. You’re not a scaredy cat or backwards if you don’t jump onto every new platform out there. Just make sure you do everything you need to do to succeed, and you’ll be doing just fine.
Right?
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mikefischer/2517778046/ via Creative Commons
How much does this “trying everything” in the marketing world cost? I completely agree that we need to get creative, controversial at times, but a lot of measured and purposeful marketing seems so much smarter.
Is failure inevitable? Yes, but nobody likes a repeat offender.
I love social media–I love free! Am I going to post on Google+ just because it’s good for my (non-existent) marketing budget…no.
I still don’t know what Foursquare is :(.
@LindaEsposito I think that measured and purposeful are great words that really need to be used (and utilized) more in the worlds of business and marketing. This is a conversation that keeps coming up over and over. You can throw spaghetti against the wall and hope it works or you can take an extra moment, plan things out, and feel quite secure that it will work. It’s a free country and your choice to make, but I know my choice 🙂
The problem isn’t so much fear of trying; it’s more that the consequences of screwing up in social are far wider spread than screwing up a print ad. If you mess up a print ad, you take the cost hit to fix and hopefully keep the client. Screw up in social media, and you know yourself the far-reaching consequences being so public can have.
With that possibility in the background, it’s no wonder there’s less trying.
@DannyBrown That’s an interesting point. While the ramifications of messing up a “traditional” marketing tactic can be pretty darned bad, it’s usually just between the marketing firm and the client. In the online world, everything is out there in the open.
That being said, you’d think that while there might be more trying, it would become more careful and well thought-out. However, people seem inclined to just jump right in and then they are surprised when it backfires. *sigh*
Thanks for the reassurance Margie, I was worried that people would make fun of me for not immediately signing up for Zurker!
The point that resounded most with me was about Social Media being “free.” You’re right, it’s so far from free. I was fortunate that someone was kind enough to develop a website for me, but that’s about the extent of it. Right now, could even argue that Social Media is costing me money without even spending a penny! I have one of those boring jobs that has nothing to do with #SM, and it’s commissioned, so the more time I spend building my virtual Empire during the day , the less time I’m spending at my real job making sales. Think need a career change 😉
@SociallyGenius Well, I can’t help you with the career change advice, but yeah – social media is far from free. The earlier you can recognize that and act appropriately, the better off you will be, in my opinion!
I learned long ago that I cannot possibly try everything. I wish I had the time but frankly I just dont and maybe never will. I am still not on Google+ and just got signed up with Pinterest (just got a new apartment and someone said it was a good place to get design ideas so what the heck right?). ‘Not trying’ doesnt mean you didnt try anything and it doesnt mean anything about you as a professional. People in my current job have criticized me saying ‘your a marketer, you should know all this stuff.’ Well, yes, I know of the stuff and can probably figure it out if given the chance but dont see any void from not trying.
I am absolutely a believer in the notion of learning through failures. But those failures should not be sought out intentionally. And if that becomes your excuse for jumping on every bandwagon just to jump off again (because you can say you were there and you tried it) – ‘I failed and learned because of it.’ Then you are just abusing the lesson.
@C_Pappas Very well said. I think a lot of it *is* about jumping on the bandwagon. Right now, if you write a blog post about Pinterest, it’s almost guaranteed to generate good traffic and good search results for you. In order to write about it and get that traffic, you need to show that you have at least some idea of what it is and how it works. So, jump in. Meanwhile, is that taking you away from things that your company really needs you to be doing? Is that distracting you from more important, more constructive marketing tactics?
These are the questions that we need to bounce around more often.