The Marketing Plaza

Marketing is like a light bulb. Do it right and the world lights up around you.  Customers come clamoring to you because they clearly see you’re the right fit for them.  The media buzzes about you with little effort.  You’ve got what everyone wants.  It’s a true GE moment – “Bringing good things to light.”

But how to you get there?  Take a lesson from the master himself -  Thomas Alva Edison. “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

If your marketing is not working, don’t give up the ship. Move on to the next concept.  Therein lies the first problem with most marketing. CEOs abandon ship.  That’s never a good sign.

The concept of repetitive testing for uncovering marketing genius was the topic of a recent breakfast meeting featuring Mike Moran, author of the new book Do it Wrong Quickly. His thesis is simple.  Great marketing is based on analytics which can tell you what’s working and what’s not.  If something isn’t working, stop it, but don’t stop marketing altogether.  Instead, quickly move on to the next concept and the next until you finally stumble upon the light bulb.  Voila! Marketing success.

The public will think you’re a marketing genius just as we all now acknowledge Edison’s genius as an inventor.  But, the truth will be marketing peserverance – you stuck with it and tested and measured and refined, and tested and measured and refined, and tested and measured and refined (you get the idea).

In a nutshell: Marketing is about perseverance. Learn from Edison and keep trying new ideas until you uncover the one that really works and lights up the world.

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