Unconventional Marketing

(click image for larger version)


As an individual, this blog is one of the most effective manifestations of "marketing" I could have produced for myself.  I have a respectable audience that comes back as opposed to visiting it once, never to return again.  People participate in through comments and the content is distributable.  But imagine if I started it the same way many large organizations launch conventional marketing initiatives. What would that have looked like?

First I would have had to do several hundred pages of strategy documentation, including target audiences, marketing segments, competitive analysis—you name it. Then I would put some concepts together and test them in focus groups to see if representatives in a lab like A, B, or C, better. Next, I would take that feedback, make a few adjustments and plan a multichannel campaign—launching the blog with all sorts of advertising pointing to it. And since I painstakingly outlined the ROI in the in-depth strategy, I'd go about measuring the effectiveness against the ROI that was outlined prior to launch.

Of course, this blog like millions or other forms of "social media" followed a path that looked nothing like that. In fact, it looked much more like the second flow.  Sure, I put some initial thought into it before ever touching a pixel, but once I launched the blog it became a never-ending cycle of content development, template design tweaks, and learning curves based off of what was going on each time I did something.

For example, when I started posting visuals, I would check my stats and could see that people from all sorts of other sites and blogs began referencing them and linking back—so I realized that the visuals were providing something people wanted, and if I wanted to continue to build an audience, this was a good way to do it.  Secondly, I had thought that my primary audience would be designers, when in fact the blog started attracting an eclectic audience of planners, marketers, librarians, even evangelists.  After each cycle of launching content or even functionality in the sidebars, I was learning about who my audience was and why they were coming.  This required me to periodically have more frequent checkpoints of "little strategy" where I would plan the direction of where I wanted to go and make the appropriate adjustments to get there. And it felt less like a straight path and more like a meandering one, because the "focus group" was happening in real time after the initial launch.

I've been thinking about this for a while because after having some exposure to large organizations, it occurred to me that there is a desire to do more "unconventional marketing" but the machine which is in place is actually "conventional"—all the things that have been done in the past. For example, it's common and understandable for the "what's the ROI?" question to be raised during an unconventional marketing initiative, but that question could derail the entire effort before it has a chance to ever get off the ground.  Sometimes the ROI is simply insights and learnings that are gleamed from actually doing the initiative. Other times, the direction of the initiative changes midway through in in unexpected ways that could not have been predicted. Many times for the better—let's not forget that Twitter was never meant to be what it ended up being today.

Speaking from personal experience, I could not have predicted many of the outcomes I have had since launching this blog, but I believe following a much more "unconventional" path is a core reason behind everything that I've learned from it.  For a couple of hundred dollars a year and a lot of dedication and effort it's priceless to me.  And so as I think about how times are becoming more unconventional—with unpredictable financial markets and political change in the air, I can't help but think that it's more important than ever to get serious about what it takes to do these types of initiatives right.  It just doesn't look like conventional marketing—it's different. And unconventional times call for unconventional tactics.

Comments

[Damien Basile]

Speaking of the graphics that you mentioned, if they're so integral to your site, wouldnt you want to show ones that are clearer and more legible? Look into using .svg if possible considering the graphics only consist of flat block colors. I personally had to zoom in many times just to read the words.

[Michael Melnick]

Hi David,
I enjoyed your post and wanted to draw your attention to a video that Tom Guarriello posted on Vloggerheads.com, Tom is one of the founders of this growing community and he talk about the process of learning and how it is an integral part of the development of the Vloggerheads "experiment". I think this is a strong parallel idea that complements your notion of Unconventional Marketing.

http://www.vloggerheads.com/video/video/show?id=2225835%3AVideo%3A306269

[Vijay Sankaran]

Your post touches upon two key challenges faced by traditional minded marketers: the ingrained habit of seeking `predictable performance',and the lack of agility to execute anything iterative.
These require a change in mindset as well as internal process.
@VijaySankaran

[magnus]

david,

you are quite right that this age of crowdsourcing and social media probably is the time for companies to try new, unconventional ways in their marketing strategies. but for me there is one big difference: even though your blog is a marketing tool, it is still just your personal and spare time business to promote your "competences".

on the other hand, companies are trying to sell products on a much more larger scale. so i think if you had a yearly budget of 5m dollars or like you said you have one of a couple of hundreds - thats quite something else. there is much more risk attached to any decision made from marketers in such companies - imho, you cant just start an assembly line of 50k products a day, look whats happening with the market and then tweak your product to market needs.

[Burcu Tüzün]

Hi David,
by emotional marketing we need to manage the emotions too,which is really hard for a marketer. In the unconventional diagramm, i dont think by little strategies we can rightly handle the emotions. Little strategies mean short term tactics. And every short term tactic may have its own way and target. If the targets challenge inside, the short term strategies can bring us somewhere we dont want to go. There must be a long term strategy which includes little strategies.

[David Armano]

Damien,

Thanks for that feedback. I assume your critique is addressing the visual at full size? I'll take a look and see if I can make the text a little bigger.

Michael, that's a very interesting video. You're right. Quiet a few parallels here. I think I'm trying to think beyond experimentation, but it's certainly a part of this. learning and adapting.

Vijay, yes, this is what I'm trying to think through. Can marketing be more agile? Can it be more adaptive? Can it be more nimble?

Magnus, you said
"even though your blog is a marketing tool, it is still just your personal and spare time business to promote your "competences".

bingo. I actually think marketing needs to really start understanding and mimicking techniques like I've used on this blog. While you cite differences, think about sites like engadget. If Sony were to come out with a new product—any of their online marketing initiatives would be challenged to get close to the traffic that Engadget would get if they reviewed the product. Engagdet also started in someone's "personal spare time"

Burcu,
"little strategy" in my definition is not merley a tactic. It's thinking along the way. Taking insights, synthesizing them and taking action as a result. The action is the tactics, the "little strategy" is still strategy, it's just more pliable.

Thanks for the solid thoughts here.

[dominic]

Nice post! I've two questions?

Do you think the economic turn down will help companies look at "little strategies" ?

and to your Sony example, whatif Sony employees (starting with their marketing people) would be so knowledgeable and energize by their new product that they will talk about it with passion in thousands of blogs ? Collectively capturing insights from their target communities (may be not geek) and proceed with the next round of little strategy ?

I think it would be more powerful than an Engadget review.

[Davezilla]

That graphic really nails it, David. I keep harping on the idea that big ideas are/should be mainly lots of little ideas that all contribute to the overall strategy.

[Graham Hill]

Hi David

Thought provoking as ever. But perhaps not as new as you think.

What you are describing is a Strategic Marketing Staircase. Each step up the staircase is a controlled experiment to see what works, to improve it a little and to learn ready for the next experiment. The experiments that work become institutionalised as the new daily business. Thse that don't are improved or abandoned.

The key, of course, is to have a clear idea of where you are going, without knowing exactly how you are going to get there at the beginning. This allows you to do your experiments within a larger strategy. And you need to be willing to act on the evidence of what really works, in planning the next step towards the larger goal.

Toyota uses this approach in its famous Hoshin Kanri planning and Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. Startup businesses use it in their boot-strapping activities. And most non-marketing projects use something like this approach today too.

McKinsey described the whole process in a definitive article in the McKinsey Quarterly in 1996 called 'Staircases for Growth'. They also showed how you can use real options to value each step of the way. Now there's a novely for marketing people!

Before we get too worried about risky marketing process innovation, let's not forget that the old marketing way is NOT exactly a big success, despite what marketers like to think: 80% of new product introductions fail the first time round. And 60% fail the second time round.

Keep up the great work.

Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager

Further Reading:

CustomerThink.com, 'Now is the Time for Evidence-based CRM'
http://www.customerthink.com/blog/now_time_evidence_based_crm

McKinsey Quarterly, 'Staircases for Growth'
http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/PDFDownload.aspx?L2=21&L3=34&ar=197

[Karl Long]

When are we going to start an agency that helps big clients figure this stuff out David :-)

[Paula Thornton]

Brilliant thoughts as usual. Here's what it sparked in my mind, particularly around the issue of ROI. What we're really talking about is a true Design Thinking approach to this stuff -- experimenting with the possibilities and reiterating. This is the stuff of innovation.

So, perhaps we need to ask the requesters of ROI, "Would you like me to lock this down enough to give you an ROI and forgo the opportunity for it to be innovative?"

It's always about giving them a choice :)

[One Trouser]

Hi David, firstly I wonder, what do you think on Google's “launch early and iterate” and their results?

Actually, what I believe is that talking about all the social stuff (like brand profiles at Facebook, Twitter), brands simply have NO TIME to prepare any of hundred pages documentations. So they learn how to provide relevant content HERE and NOW. Not in days or hours, but minutes and secs after users responses/comments. That is tough. Now everybody is about at the same level – learning how to get ROI from "unmarketable" Youtube, Facebook etc. Those who start earlier, like Southwest with their great interactive results or you with your own blog, have their ROI faster as well, the others will have to learn harder or buy yours/some of your commentators’ consultancy on a really high price. :) What do you think on that?

[Graham Hill]

Hi Paula

You can have an iterative approach and an ROI. The key is to use real-option thinking (and this doesn't require complex maths, before you ask) to design each iteration as an opportunity to discover information that will help you better quantify the next iteration.

Companies making large investments in unquantified new technologies or markets have used this approach for years. There is no reason why you can't use it for small iterative projects as well. I have used it for years running rapid pilot projects.

The quid pro quo is that you do need to think about what you are doing, why you are doing it and who you are doing it for, not just to play with stuff and hope that some of it works. A small price to pay.

Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager

[morgan williams]

Way to stick it to the man....sort of.

[Jim Hoff]

I have nothing profound to add to what's already been said, other than to say I really dig this visual and this discussion. I see much value these days in understanding and visualizing that unconventional path, as you labeled it.

[Markus Smet]

As a marketer I think there are 3 kinds of marketing that are well established. 6 years ago I read an article in Marketing Week that suggested 3 styles of marketing 1) Strong Leadership 2) Test & Measure 3) Planned.

There has always been a mixture of all 3 styles and different organisations use different amounts of each. Dyson use all three but would have started with 1 & 2 before moving to 3.

The diagram above essentially outlines style 2 very elegantly, however it's an evolution of well established marketing thinking.

It just struck me that it is essentially Agile Marketing?

[Business Cards]

I agree with Graham that this reminds me of the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle made popular by W. Edwards Deming. Not that that is a bad thing. If you have a lot at stake, like your business, it makes perfect sense to break steps and analysis down as much as possible. There’s nothing that says you must have one strategy only – a bunch of little strategies is just as good as one overarching strategy. Maybe even better, actually, with the room to learn from mistakes.

[Morgan Coudray]

That's exactly it David. What ticks for me and this new concept is the fact that 'insights' and other market research should be responsabilities put in the hands of the agencies. More and more they are interacting first-hand with the clients; this would also push agencies to get even closer with them. This would save a lot of marketing and R&D money which is usually spent on a multititude of customer surveys, focus groups and other market research.

The smaller startegies are also the future of agency operations since each message will have to be focused. They'll have a strategy for each market segment with distinct use of different ad medium.
Great concept David

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