2022: A Year of FRONT OF MIND : A summary for those who missed it
As we approach 12 months of my musings, thought it would be a good time to summarise a year of writing and themes for those who weren’t yet reading, in the hope you get your vitamins pre silly season!
Dear valued customers and clients,
As the year comes to a close, we at [Company Name] would like to take a moment to reflect on the past year and all that we have accomplished together. It has been a challenging year, to say the least, but we are proud to have persevered and continued to provide high-quality products and services to you, our valued customers. Despite the challenges of the past year, we have seen incredible growth and success. We have expanded our product line, entered new markets, and formed partnerships with industry leaders. We have also continued to innovate and improve, staying ahead of the curve and providing our customers with the best possible solutions.
We are grateful for your support and trust in us, and we look forward to continuing to serve you in the coming year.
Best regards, [Your Name] [Company Name]
ZZZZZZZZZZ… THAT WAS NOT ME BY THE WAY
Could you tell? (I really hope so!)
I used the all-powerful AI tool ChatGPT which has overtaken the business and online discourse in recent weeks. The AI is getting stronger. Yes there are some generic responses but some really clever use cases. Feels faddy in some ways and another tech tool, but if we can harness its potential we will be able to know how to embrace and use, and every so often be prepared to iterate our thinking as it itself progresses.
Ok that is December covered in our industry. Anyway, before the singularity kicks in, lets be human, OK
A YEAR OF MY SUBSTACK, kind of summarised (and heavily linked…)
Being a month of conviviality, closing off bits before the holidays and also the fact I am swamped with work, I thought I would round off this first year of Substacking with a synthesis of the 11 monthly posts, so you have them all to hand and provides a go-to quick guide for those who want to use this Content. Firstly, a big thanks to subscribers who have been growing month on month and although not the largest audience, I look at the list and I see a finely honed list of marketers and entrepreneurs who are curious about the world we play in, so kudos to you.
So I’m going to go through the months, link back to it, identify the key ‘so what’ and hopefully you can go from there..
JANUARY - Level setting from the start, Advertising is NOT Marketing
As the title says, it’s main purpose is to think about the discipline overall, and that Advertising is typically within one of the 4 Marketing Ps (Promotion), but there is so much more to unlock before doing that. Have a read to ensure your full marketing audit is in place.
“As Abraham Lincoln said “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six sharpening my axe.”
FEBRUARY - NOW we talk about Advertising
Now it is time to promote the message, it is thinking about the media plan, and splitting the brand and the performance pieces, thinking about the short term efficiency and capture whilst targeting future buyers with longer-term brand building.
“In the performance marketing world (well economics originally), we have a saying - the law of diminishing return. In other words if we keep just using targeted media, e.g. Facebook Ads, to drive efficient sales with a low CPA or high ROI, we will have less to convert over time, and performance will suffer. As a metaphor, brand building breeds the fish, and sales activation catches the near swimmers.”
MARCH - All About Data, How to use it, and Why…
We are told so much about data, but in March I turned to the often overused term and unpacked what it really means (and can mean) for advertisers. Thinking in terms of future proofing your business is key, with quality 1st party data, and less quantity. less can indeed be more:
“If I was going to email 1,000 target prospect in my ESP for a test, the fact I have 25k is useless to me, I would rather know which 980 filled out the form of interest, showed intent to buy a product, and similar. Less can be more. but the more is being more comprehensive and insightful. Insight being the word often overused too. An insight is a genuine piece of wow intelligence garnered from statistical data significance, be wary of overuse.”
APRIL - Remember, what is the point of it all?
Must have been the new financial year kicking in and a fight back against the new year forecasting and ad obsessions crippling my inbox at the time, but this was calling a truce on all the silliness of our industry, and if we take a step back, remembering our goal to ultimately sell a bit more…
“Most people don’t care about the ads, or what you’re trying to say (and when) and they can see through the wafer-thing veneer of purpose and benevolence, and the best you can honestly hope for is recall and having share of voice and a potential new customer, which is the whole point!”
MAY - A brief meditation on what we should be doing
I must have been up against it, and feeling a bit stressed, as I honestly really could not be arsed that month, I almost wondered whether even monthly was going to be too much, but glad I stick it out as June one was a lot more inspired and in depth and things have truly kicked on since then! But, this had its merit, was getting people to think about the ultimate thing that matters, the output of the comms, how it makes people feel!
JUNE - Let’s Make B2B Marketing great again!
Inspiration back, this time from a LinkedIn Webinar (of all places!!) But seriously it got me thinking how dull B2B comms is and my rethinking a few elements we can get it back to where it needs to be. Ultimately it is humans selling to humans, so make it so…
“Thinking about motivations, oftentimes to alleviate a problem or to make someone look good as opposed to feel good in B2C. The solution sell is predicated on this, and the idea of bundling. e.g. You are not just selling a Coke but quenching the whole thirst and sugar hit!”
JULY - The main things keeping CMOs awake at night
There was a flurry of reports I garnered at this point, as well as being a proxy CMO and working closely with a couple of industry players. It is a strong bellwether as to where marketing leaders’ heads are at now and in the near future…
“The following 6 areas are the things that continually crop up, from both my own client experience. (where I either proxy as part time CMO or assist incumbent on consultancy basis) and from the swathes of reports that I have consumed (sources at end of article). Being customer journey obsessed, involved in everything, thinking about addressability, understanding the human over tech, return on investment & measurement, and sustainability.”
AUGUST - Probably the most important stage, BRIEFING
When I wrote this it felt like my real Magnum Opus of how-to guides. Inspired by the Better Briefs guys and an IPA document re briefing an Agency, I took it upon myself to share the pre and in-brief considerations, and to include to oh-so-important and almost always overlooked critical input post-brief - the humans!
“Never forget - This is a human to human discipline, with humans signing off work by humans to advertise to other humans. A glorious chain of erratic links. So please, just talk!”
SEPTEMBER - Bringing it BACK TO BASICS
OK, I hate content calendarisation of planning but I kind of fell on my own sword here, albeit slightly ironically. However it was of course an apt time to share the fundamentals:
“But I am optimistic and can see a shift change. Even the godfathers of hustle like Gary Vaynerchuk are reneging slightly on their burnout regimes and understand that slow and steady can indeed win the race, and by being consistent and building brands over time can actually be good for business. Who would have thought?”
OCTOBER - MENTAL HEALTH - A change of pace from the norm
Here, I broke from the marketing playbook convention and risked losing you to share an honest account of things that were searing in me at the time, reviewing myself honestly and trying to understand the wider backdrops as to why we can suffer. Have since got clarity on the neuro-diversion (a story for another time), but by looking inwards we can start to understand ourselves and ultimately apply ourselves to do better work…
“The big thing though is here and in the title, WE ARE HUMANS DELIVERING. We all have a richness of perspectives and stories. We are not proven performance metrics. We don’t fit on an IPA graph or are 60:40 or 80:20. We oscillate by day. We are not algorithms to game nor consistent cells on a spreadsheet.”
NOVEMBER - By Now the Annual Planning Should be in Play
Last month is equally applicable if you read for the first time today, I just wanted you to get ahead of the curve in true planning style, and consider the key elements ahead of 2023, including thinking beyond the recession looking at perennial data which evens off recent oscillations, not succumbing to mere purpose, and ensuring a solid measurement framework…
“Think where you are, what the blocks are (more than most right now), and how to overcome them. We are entering a year of tightened purse strings, and although there are strategies to counter this and sharpen up, now is a more important time than ever to stay true to planning fundamentals, deliver what you know, but be conscious of the evidence and the headwinds.”
IT’S A WRAP - A Wrap
Hope resurfacing some of the above has reignited some thinking heading into 2023 and may help 1 or 2 of you with some marketing thoughts ahead of the long year ahead. Meanwhile, I think we should probably give ourselves a little pat on the back, and if you like a tipple now is the time to reach for that shelf/the corkscrew. Relax, we work to live, and come back stronger next year.
To close, I want to thank everyone who has supported me on this newsletter creation and to my perfectly formed list of growing subscribers who have engaged with me on this. I wish you all well and a great festive break, however you are celebrating, and we will resurface in 2023 with a focus on always learning, sharpening our marketing axes and focus on getting better and better, myself included! And I promise to not use ChatGPT again.
Wishing you the best to you and your loved ones.
Si x
PS. I hope you are getting a semblance of value out of this. If so, and you think any other marketeer or business owner would, feel free to share/forward this to them and encourage them to subscribe. Also, follow me on LinkedIn, Twitter or my company page. Thanks