The High Cost of Doing Nothing About Your Marketing
I recently met with a very smart businessperson who told me she had decided that instead of moving forward with the marketing strategy we had discussed, she was going to do nothing. I said, “That’s interesting. What are you going to do instead?”
She repeated, “I’m going to do nothing. Literally, nothing. I think we need to wait and see how things continue to go this year, and we have some competing needs for the marketing funds we had set aside. I think we’re going to divert the funds to some equipment purchases.”
I left her office dumbfounded.
Now, perhaps my proposal was more than she expected (though we had discussed budget up front), or maybe the timeframe for accomplishing the goals we had defined together was longer than she wanted, but I think she just ended up not wanting to do the hard work of marketing her company.
If you think marketing is as simple as finding the right agency, or finding some kind of magic bullet, you’re wrong. Doing the work of marketing is hard, just like most things that are worthwhile. It is a full-time job. And yes, it costs money. Sometimes, a good deal of money.
But, I absolutely believe this: the cost of doing nothing is far greater, and I’ve seen it. It’s a goofy analogy, but it’s like being dehydrated. By the time you feel thirsty, your body is likely already dehydrated.
By the time your sales reports start to point to a decline, it may indeed be too late for marketing to do anything to save you.
Marketing is about consistency over time. Consistent positioning. Consistent messaging. Consistent visual identity. Consistent effort. It is a 24/7 job, and today, it’s made even more difficult by all of the “digital noise” out there.
Today’s tools of marketing automation and inbound marketing can help with the load, but the hard work must still be done by you (hopefully along with some results-oriented help from your agency partner).
Want your marketing to win you new customers and new revenue? You’ve got to do the work.
