Turning up to a party stylishly late can be an effective way to steal the room, ensuring that every other guest is already there to see you arrive. The attention that this might garner makes it seem like marketing, too, could benefit from a delayed entrance. In reality, though, rather than making a splash, marketing that’s late to the party too often fails to create any impression at all.
This is largely due to the fact that there’s no way for your contribution to impress leads into converting if it’s been done countless times before. What’s more, these marketing afterthoughts are going to make you look either lazy or unorganised, neither of which you want!
Quite simply, these factors add together to mean that there’s no such thing as ‘stylishly’ late where marketing is concerned – you’re either on top of the trends or you’re behind them. Unfortunately for many companies, even their best efforts see them falling behind on the marketing front. Here, we’re going to consider why that is, and the steps necessary to overcome this curse at last.
Treating marketing as an afterthought
Outside of product development and sales, a surprising amount of companies treat marketing as an afterthought. This is a problem because conversions are entirely dependent on marketing success, and it also means that any efforts you do implement are pale, rushed copies of what’s already out there. That’s no way to sell. Luckily, bringing marketing out into the open doesn’t have to mean compromising on existing priorities. By employing a dedicated marketing team or working with a third-party SEO agency, it’s possible to make space for marketing and sales in the same breath. This ensures inclusive marketing focuses that arrive just in time to do the talking for you.
Failing to get ahead of the trends
Even if you have a specific team for your marketing needs, failing to get ahead means that you’ll struggle to compete regardless. As such, marketing teams should always work to not only track what the competition is doing, but foresee or set marketing trends in the industry. Luckily, an outsourced marketing service is already poised to do this. In-house, ongoing training and a constant focus on proactive marketing is the best way to overcome potential knowledge gaps and get ahead at long last.
Taking too long on marketing development
Marketing moves fast, and an idea that was fresh a month ago is today’s old newspaper. In this sense, marketing success also relies on a quick turnover. This doesn’t mean that efforts should be rushed, but rather that teams should quickly get to work on turning ideas into reality before someone else steals the limelight. Setting tight deadlines and implementing the best tools/oversight makes this possible, guaranteeing quality regardless of how fast you have to work.
In order for marketing to make ripples, it needs to turn up to the party early, not late. With the help of these pointers, you guarantee that you can achieve that goal in style.