Skip to main content

A Marketing Lesson From Birthing Classes



There's something about being entirely responsible for the life of a baby, that makes you do the job well...completely.

I recently attended a range of birthing classes. Other than these classes being completely frightening and teaching you how to best look after your baby, they teach you how to take care of another baby…your brand.

Ask the right questions
Something that all marketers and parents alike must learn to do, is ask the right questions. The parental class kicked off with the acronym B.R.A.I.N. This acronym can be applied to any campaign and/or new technology under consideration (as well as holding you in good stead, when your partner is in labour).

Once you have established the objective and budget, remember B.R.A.I.N!

B – Benefits: What are the benefits to the brand or department?
This is normally a snug fit around the objective(s), which should remain front of mind at all times.

R – Risks: What risks or potential disadvantages may be involved?
Risks can sometimes be downplayed due to lack of knowledge or understanding. If risks present themselves later in the piece, don’t be afraid to pull back and re-assess. Sometimes, being in digital marketing the only way to exercise agility is to – within reason – be ignorant and progress. As Mark Zuckerberg says, progress is better than perfection.

A – Alternatives: Are there any? This is a good time to revisit the objective.
We can all get caught up focusing on the new tool, but are we addressing the objective or are we reshaping it to cater for the tool?..

A classic example of reshaping the objective for the tool is when someone walks up to you and says, “I need an iPhone app”. This may be more about an app, than fulfilling an objective.

I – Impact: What's the impact or risk of not doing this or not following the trend?
Many jump on board just for the sake of it i.e. "I know social, I'm on every social media platform..." fleshing out the positive or negative impact, is a great way of establishing if you should actually proceed.

Sometimes, this point can be the most compelling, when putting together a business case. Impact, in many cases, acts as the ashes from where the phoenix a.k.a the objective is spawn.

N – Now: Does this need to be done now?
I’m a massive fan of being in the head space of 'move quickly and break things' and early adoption only makes sense if you're able to react quickly enough to reduce risk, learn and make amends.

Sometimes though, it is just an inefficient use of resources. If you know your customer and yourself, this should be straightforward.

Love your brand/campaign
I find it incredibly difficult as a marketer, to work on a brand without genuinely loving it. What keeps me checking the insights of an online campaign while I’m on a break, or checking the social feed while at home, or responding to a comment while out at dinner? Why do I take negative sentiment around a campaign or brand I'm working on, personally? Love, that's why.

Just like the love of a baby, it is not only pivotal, but healthy to love the campaign or brand that you're working on. Attend and nurture it as it requires and you will reap the rewards. This I feel, is the only way to do your job, well... completely.

THE MORAL:
NEVER LOSE SIGHT OF THE OBJECTIVE. ASK QUESTIONS. DON’T LOSE YOUR B.R.A.I.N.



Labels:
Location: Australia

Comments

  1. Unknown14 October 2013 at 22:26

    Awesome post! Personally I like your site. . I am so impressed to read your content. I am looking forward for the next valuable and informative concept in your blog. Overall outstanding post.

    Digital Marketing

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Technology. Freedom or Addiction?

While there is no shortage of claims of how there will be nothing a human will be able to do better than our AI counterparts in the future, the real question is, what is the actual overarching goal of technology today? I'm not addicted Whatever happened to technology enabling us to better live our lives, by keeping us better informed, connected and empowered? Instead, I feel we are heading down this path of acceptable addiction, where I download an app to help manage my apps. Where I use a SaaS (software as a service) that helps me use another piece of software as well as offer a service. Where I jump on Facebook to 'connect with loved ones' and find myself sucked into a number of rabbit warrens littered with cat videos, conspiracy theorists, memes, birds with arms and generally content design to keep me clicking, watching, consuming all while my details are pawned off to the next advertiser. Ok, I'm addicted Our addiction is so real but we can'...
Post a Comment
Read more

4 things to do first on social media

You have a website, now what? It's still somewhat surprising, that businesses (both online & traditional) are still in the dark about social media and what to do first. So below are 4 things to take care of first, on social media: 1. Get access: Is your I.T. department part of the silly bunch who still blocks YouTube, Facebook or Twitter? A study conducted by The University of Melbourne has found that, basically, you’re 9% more productive then someone who doesn’t surf the web (non-work related surfing). Video sum up of the study (University of Melbourne): http://youtu.be/Ga-8__7tgkE if you prefer to read about it, click here . 2. Get a copy of your company’s social media guidelines: A quick search on Google, for some of the bigger companies such as Telstra, Deloitte, etc have their internal social media guidelines available for download, and if you’re lucky enough to develop guidelines for your company, remind everybody they are called guidelines, not roadblocks. 3. ...
2 comments
Read more

SEO & Social Media Optimisation

SEO/SEM   Often people are confused by search engine optimisation and search engine marketing, so let me put it simply…good SEO incorporates SEM amongst other factors and good SEM incorporates SEO, in fact, if good SEM doesn’t incorporate SEO, then I would drop the ‘good’ and replace it with ‘not so good’ and if you’re not taking advantage of SEM when doing SEO, to at least fill in the gaps of your SEO, then your SEM still needs work and you’re probably spending too much on your SEM. Oh, and let’s not forget that if your SEM doesn’t incorporate SEO then you’re not maximising your impressions, ranking, CTR, cost and you’re certainly not appearing in that yellow highlighted “money can’t buy” area of the SERPs, which means both your SEO and SEM need to be reviewed. Simple right..?? Fact: SEO/SEM is not simple to most people, if you don’t have a digital expert looking at this, then you’re likely to be doing it wrong. Factors to consider Search engines have become a lot more sophi...
5 comments
Read more