Have you ever eaten roadkill? I know several people that have, but it’s not something that appeals to me. Besides the yuck factor, there’s the risk of disease. So why would you tolerate Roadkill Marketing in your organization?

What’s Roadkill Marketing? Just like it sounds. It’s driving in any direction toward a distant business goal, picking up whatever leads, prospects, or customers you happen across on the side of the road, and trying to build a growth path on the energy they provide.

There’s lot’s of good marketing going on out there, but Roadkill is particularly unconscious and insidious. Its main symptom is focus on marketing tactics ahead of marketing strategy. I’m a great believer in execution, but execution without direction is a waste of effort. Let me give you an example.

At a sales meeting I heard a marketing person ask a B2B sales team what they thought they needed. They dutifully gave the list of usual suspects: 1) a lower price, 2) more literature, 3) a prettier website, and 4) some advertising. When asked about the advertising, one sales person suggested a billboard. I found this last suggestion particularly interesting and my Roadkill radar clicked on. Since this was a B2B company, I asked on which highway would they place the billboard? Who did they want to message, and what message did they want to convey? And could the get the message succinct enough to be read at 50 mph and 50 yards away?

The biggest barrier to good marketing are not the tactics or communication channels. It’s identifying your market segments, the prospects, and understanding their business needs, developing a go-to-market strategy, creating a value proposition, positioning, and messaging. Then it’s experimenting in attracting attention, building a connection, creating a compelling reason to take the next step, and getting someone to actually take that step. These things take a little time.

But because everyone loves action, tactics take precedence. Marketers get to show they are producing literature, making the website prettier, and doing a billboard. Activities that are pretty much useless. Never mind that they don’t often complete many of these tactics, because they are rushing from one tactic to another without measuring what’s working. They are driving endlessly, hoping to pick up some roadkill.

OK, perhaps this is a little harsh. But action is easier than thoughtful planning and asking tough questions. But action doesn’t necessarily give you results unless you learn from it and adapt to what you’ve learned.

Marketers please take the following pledge… and let a little rage out in your comments.

The No Roadkill Pledge:

1.   My tactics will be based on sound strategy and planning.

2.   I will seek to understand my customers/prospects, as well as their businesses.

3.   I will support sales and be a team player.

4.   I will lead.

5.   I will listen.

6.   I will be agile. Experiment, learn, and adapt.

7.   I will complete one thing well on time rather than 10 things next month.

8.   I will not create boring marketing.

9.   I will constantly strive to improve our data and analytics.

10. I will measure the results of my programs and prove the ROI.

What did I miss? Take the pledge here.

Do Great Things!

Lee Hobart Stocking
Principal
Prairie Sky Group
hobart@prairieskygroup.com
651-357-0110 (C)

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It’s the strategic planning season again in corporate America, and it’s difficult for me to not be a little cynical.  I’ve been through dozens of strategic planning sessions, some good, but most just awful.

There are lots of good strategic planning processes and facilitators.   That’s usually not the issue.

As Americans, we are culturally programmed to be optimistic about the future.  Though we spend very little time actually doing anything to prepare for it.  It’s apparent in our politics, and in our business.  We want the immediate result, so we take the short-term action.   If oil prices are up, we release strategic petroleum reserves.  If profits are down, then we cut jobs.  If we want jobs, then we create highway projects… that help facilitate our consumption of petroleum.

We are also connected everywhere in real time.   And we expect the ability to connect, to give us a competitive edge, so we answer our emails at midnight.  But there are other business and social cultures that take a longer view.  These cultures think in terms of decades.   They’re asking, what is the ultimate endgame or result that we want?  Continuing the energy analogy above, China is now the world’s largest exporter of green technology in the world.   They’ve been working on this for a decade or more.  The longer-term view is a trait that we might be well served by, though I suspect that it’s too big a leap.

In my observation, there are two related sins in strategic planning.  The first is making your plan entirely short-term and tactical.  This can happen if you are constrained by current budgets, finances, conditions, or competition.  You become so focused on what needs to get done in the near future that you make today the enemy of tomorrow.  The second is that you come up with a great strategic plan, and then spend no time working on the tactical plan to get there.

This year, let’s resolve to take an intermediate view past the short term tactical.  You don’t need to think a decade out, but three years would be ideal.  Then establish the key steps it will take you to get there.  Past that, work the tactical plan every quarter, and review your strategy yearly as you go along.  You say you do that?  Then have you arrived where you set out to go three years ago?

To coin a term, think and act… stratactically.

Do great things.

Lee Stocking
Prairie Sky Group
Making Sales Cry With Qualified Leads
lee.stocking@gmail.com
651-357-0110 (Cell 24×7)

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