So I’m sitting here trying to think of what to blog about this week. I wanted to do a video blog and then realized the mic on my laptop stinks, so I had to put that on the backburner for the time being and was left stranded. I wanted to blog about something because I’m trying up the ante with my posting frequency. Then I started thinking, do I really want to post something when I have nothing insightful to say? I know, I know, I’ve read blog posts about this before, too. But this got me thinking about how this relates to businesses. Then I started thinking about how it relates to marketing. Then, I had a topic to write about.
What? The light bulb in your head doesn't look like this?
Companies have marketing budgets in the millions. They’re expected to utilize this to pump out new marketing content every so often, whether it is in a commercial, print ads, buying a list of potential customers, you name it. With all of this money lying around (even though this money has shrunk considerably in the recession), you KNOW that sometimes they spend money for the heck of it.
I’m not saying they buy themselves new iMac’s because they’re under budget for the month (even though they probably do). One scenario I pictured is that someone thinks of this really awesome idea (probably one they think will go viral), and they get really really emotionally attached to it, but they can’t really think of where it fits strategically. It’s not going to generate sales, really. It MAY help the brand image some. Either way, it’s going to be a grand time! The consumer will probably see it and think it’s pretty neat, and the marketer can slap it on their resume as a creative idea they came up with, but, in the end, if it isn’t successfully marketing your company or product, is it really worth doing?
The other scenario I envision is a marketing department sitting around the office, tossing a ball in the air, listening to their iPod, and talking on G-Chat (simultaneously, of course). Basically, the marketing department isn’t doing anything. They can’t think of the next big thing for their product, but they know they probably should do something just to say they tried and sort of care.
So, what do they do? They make come up with some marketing tactics for the hell of it. They probably did a crappy job, but hey, at least they can say they tried (this is a lot like me initially writing a post just so I could keep up my posting frequency).
What both of these scenarios have in common is that money is being spent which isn’t putting the company in a better place than it was before. Now, there’s a difference between this and taking risks, because risks at least intend on benefiting the company, even if they don’t actually accomplish this. Risky money spending = good. Wasteful money spending = bad.
So, what I’m saying is: don’t spend time OR money on marketing tactics that don’t have a clear, distinct purpose that will (hopefully) strengthen the company. If you’re going to do it, do it well. Word.
Tweet This (copy and paste):
Check out @jackieadkins latest blog post “Money Well Spent” – http://bit.ly/PEneB
Photo courtesy of Aaronth
