As a marketer, I'm sure you can relate to this.
Have you ever come up with an idea— the most BRILLIANT idea— that you thought to yourself, "This is it! I'm a f***ing genius!"?
And then from there, you quickly take out a piece of paper and start rapidly jotting down how this idea will work and all the ways it'll make you successful.
In under a minute, you have the whole page filled from top to bottom. You feel PROUD of yourself. You did that. You can't wait to present it to your boss. In fact, why don't we just call them right now?
As you are searching for their phone number in your contacts (and for some of you, it might be on speed dial), you are running the idea over in your head again.
But, right before you press the call button, you realize "wait, this is a terrible idea... what the Hell was I thinking?"
Thank God you didn't press the call button because I bet you forgot to include these three things in your idea:
- What is your goal?
- Who are you talking to?
- What platform(s) is this audience most active on?
Been there, done that! ? Except for the fact that I've actually pressed the call button... oops!
This brings me to a relevant blog I read recently by Seth Godin:
"Starting with the wrong idea is a waste of energy and time.
But not committing to the 100 steps of iteration, learning, adjustment, innovation, and effort are also a waste of a good idea...
Nearly every organization you can point to is built around an idea that wasn’t original or perfect. The effort and investment and evolution made the difference."
— Seth Godin's “That’s a good idea”
So, before you get too ahead of yourself with a "brilliant" idea, ask yourself those three questions. I guarantee it will lead you to even better ideas that your boss will actually love, rather than wonder why they hired you.
To reiterate this idea, as well as make an additional point, I'm going to use the old social media networking site, Orkut, for example.
Orkut
Orkut, which is now called Hello Network, was created in 2004 by a Google employee named Orkut Büyükkökten. It was a huge hit for users in India and especially Brazil. In fact, Orkut was one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil in 2008. In 2012, Orkut had 30 million users and remained the market leader for seven years.
Orkut had a goal for users to find new communities and strengthen their current ones. The marketing for these users, which Orkut understood very well at the time, was geared primarily towards technology workers and students.
The platform offered that audience many of the same offerings that almost every social media site has, such as making connections between friends, recommending products or services, searching for users or communities by keyword, and more. Two differentiators from the competition were its privacy and member-only features.
Despite Orkut's success early on, various competitors took what the platform did but added more appealing features and promptly joined the arena, which resulted in its shut down in September 2014.
Why? Because Orkut no longer fit users' needs.
Users began looking for platforms that offered blogging, social gaming, and videos— all things Orkut lacked. The platform had several functionality problems that made video a struggle, for example. It also had blockages that limited the number of friends users could have, as well as difficulties in loading and sharing photos.
This is the additional point I want to make...
Effective marketing never works with a set it and forget it approach. We must always monitor and adjust our efforts as needed for optimal success.
In the case of Orkut, if the brand had listened to its users' wants and needs, it might still exist today over other competitors.
Takeaways
Using the examples above, here are a few takeaways if you're either 1) not much of a reader or 2) you're wondering what the f*ck you just read ?:
- Your sense of urgency can wait. Your boss would probably prefer a well-thought-out idea that takes a bit more time than over a subpar, reactionary idea that happened fast.
- Identify your goal, target audience, and platform first. Then, come up with an amazing idea to check those boxes.
- Your very first idea is rarely the best one. But, it's still important because it will likely set you up for even better ideas following.
- When you do land on that brilliant idea, make it worth it. Invest the time, money, and energy into it that's required for success.
- In addition to what I said above, don't stick with that one idea and hope it will work forever. Monitor and shift your efforts on a continuous basis to keep your consumers engaged.
Thanks for reading. Please feel free to reach out with any questions about the content above, or about digital marketing in general. I would be happy to help! Stay tuned for more to come. ❤️
