Getting Started

As if the world needs another weekly marketing blog, here I go. What I hope to do here is a little different. Instead of talking about the latest and greatest which will become tomorrow’s old school, I want to focus on the business, marketing and technology issues that are timeless. I look around all the time and see folks mis-firing with the latest marketing tactic. Not because the tactic is bad, but because the underlying strategy is flawed. Soon the second mistake is made because when we throw the baby out with the bathwater and we don’t really dig to the root of failure.

NFL coach Vince Lombardi is reported to have said, “I am not going to change anything. We will use the same players, the same plays, and the same training system. But we will concentrate on becoming brilliant on the basics. Before I am finished, we will be the best team in the National Football League in kicking, passing, blocking, running and catching. We will run our plays with such precision that the other side will know what we are going to do, but will be unable to stop us. We will be brilliant on the basics.”

I want to see more people succeed by getting the fundamentals right. For example, instead of chasing Google’s latest search engine algorithm, make Google chase your strategy. Skip to the end and realize that Google trying to make a machine that thinks like we do, so it can give us what we want: fundamentally great content. That content strategy was relevant before the internet and bad algorithms took our eye off the ball for a couple of decades.

When growing up, there was a book called, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” I’ve often thought the same about my introductory marketing class. This blog will be dedicated to the simple fundamentals that get lost in all the excitement of everyday work.

I think I can pull this off weekly. So, let’s get started. I hope we have some fun and share is some great successes.