Professional marketing can’t be ‘replaced’

”Marketing requires data gathering, analysis, training, testing and discipline – repeatedly if you want loyal customers and repeat sales. Sometimes you get lucky. But it’s risky business to leave something as important as your company’s livelihood to chance.” – John Hebert

Unless you’ve been on an around-the-world cruise or perhaps backpacking through the Himalayas, by now you have heard of the utter disaster in the National Football League last season regarding the use of replacement referees.
The NFL decided – which in hindsight proved to be very faulty thinking – to lock out the regular referees when the contract with the union expired. Thinking that it wouldn’t make any difference to the overall quality of the game, the NFL brought in “replacement referees” to officiate the games.
Instead of using the tried-and-true professionals who had been with the league for a very long time, the NFL went with referees from Division III colleges and high schools and expected them to perform at a level close to what the regular refs did. To say that it did not work would be a Titanic-sized understatement.
The-powers-that-be in the league office decided that it was worth it to risk the brand, or the “shield” as they call it of the NFL by trying to save some money and not invest in something that was an integral, though believed to be insignificant, part of both the game and the overall “product.” The ensuing fiasco ensured them a place on the front page of the paper, lead stories on talk radio and even caused the league to be roasted on late-night TV.
The hue and cry built through the first three weeks of the regular season with good reason, as easy calls were missed, games were slowed down to a crawling pace and, eventually, on a Monday night in Seattle, the outcome of a game was changed and defeat was snatched out of the jaws of victory with one erroneous call on the last play of the game. Instead of an interception being awarded to the Green Bay Packers that would have secured the game, the play was ruled to be a catch and a touchdown for the Seattle Seahawks securing the win for them. Repeated television replays only confirmed what everyone knew right at the end of the game. The call was blown, and in an enormous way. Within two days, an agreement was reached with the regular referees and the “replacements” found themselves out of the limelight, their 15 minutes of fame over.
It occurred to me that there were three very applicable lessons learned from the NFL’s handling of the matter from day one of the lockout right up until the time a new deal was reached. Those lessons can easily be transferred to the current business climate and the fact that in far too many unhealthy ways, marketing has been pushed to the background.
• What’s it worth? In the NFL’s faulty thinking, they assumed they could “get by on the cheap” and break the union and employ new referees at lower dollars, thereby holding down the cost of officiating the games. What they found out is that sometimes when you try to cut corners, you end up watering down the product, losing and/or angering your customer base. It’s like trying to sell a pizza with no cheese.
In the last few years of economic hardship, one of the most common things to go first on the chopping block has been marketing budgets, sacrificed because of the belief in some corners that you could get by without marketing. Those companies are almost always the hardest hit and take the longest to recover because of the thinking that marketing is not worth it.
• Anybody can do it. With the explosion of social media and the desire (wish) to have it be a “one-size-fits-all” solution, too many people who are on Facebook think they are social media marketing gurus. The reality is marketing is still done best by marketing professionals who are cognizant and experienced in a variety of strategies and tactics. There are no silver bullets or pixie dust answers to targeting, approaching, communicating with, educating, engaging, nurturing and ultimately, converting prospects into customers. Just like officiating an NFL game – it is better to leave it to the pros.
• What’s the real problem? Did the NFL have either a top- or bottom-line problem? Not at all. It was the envy of the professional sports landscape, a $9 billion industry that was, and is, the most popular sport in America. But the thinking, again, that some cuts would have no impact on revenue and reputation proved wrong.
Trust me, your salespeople have not gotten stupid or lazy overnight if you have a revenue problem. Most often a sales problem is really a marketing problem in disguise.
Proper marketing helps you figure out who your customer is, what they want, how to communicate with them, and how to create the conditions in which they will feel both comfortable and confident to buy from you.
Your lack of marketing, of telling your story to the right people at the right time is usually the real problem. If you fail to tell a compelling story, you fail.
Peter Drucker, the leading management authority of the 20th century, was quoted as saying that marketing and innovation were the two most important things in business, more important than even finances and operations. Just as there are no substitutes for eating well, getting rest and exercising in order to stay healthy personally, there are no “replacements” to marketing in order to stay healthy in business. •


Brian Butler is the vice president of sales and marketing at The Allied Group in Cranston.

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