A while back I saw Dave Trott speak at the Jellyfish Digital Journey’s event. One of his key messages was: “don’t be a smart person doing stupid things”. Kind of obvious, but sometimes we need a reminder.
According to Dave, people have 3 problems:
- Ignorance
- Technology
- Ineptitude
You can provide all sorts of training and more technology, but there will always be smart people doing stupid things. It’s really easy to overlook the basics when we’re caught up in the whirlwind. It makes sense that, like pilots pre flight checks, like surgeons surgery checks, marketers could to with checklists too.
It’s easy to be focused on the marketing channels we’re going to use and the message we want to convey but according to Dave, we all too often overlook how we are actually going persuade our customers. I know my team and I have been guilty of this at times. Technology keeps changing, new platforms emerge but one thing remains constant: the humans we’re trying to connect with.
As marketers our checklist needs to include:
- Impact – how will we get people to see our message?
- Communication – what are we trying to say?
- Persuasion – “what’s in it for me”…how can we compel people to take action?
This is just one point of many that Dave made…unsurprisingly he explains it much better than me. Watch the video, it’s well worth the 37 minutes!
Charlotte Curl 