Investing in Advanced Marketing
Back in high school Business Class 101 most of us learned that for a company to thrive it has to invest at least 10% of what it makes back into research and development.
The same should apply to marketing. To maintain relevance and effectiveness marketers need to be pushing boundaries and changing up tactics and strategies often. What works today will likely not work tomorrow.
As a starting point I suggest dedicating 10% of your next campaign’s budget to something new and untried. If your company has never played with mobile—try it. Never did anything with social media—try that. You’ve been there, done that, and won the Lion? Then push into the more esoteric fringes of our craft and experiment with things like neuromarketing and decision-science.
You’ll need to reframe expectations. This cannot be about squeezing maximum ROI from that 10% of your budget. The other 90% should be doing the heavy lifting. This is about exploration and discovery. It’s as much about uncovering new paths to scale as it is about learning which to avoid.
Do whatever it takes to get approval. Save some trees and drop the direct mail component. Run less mass. Call it a pilot program. Then apply that other great lesson we learned in high school: the scientific method. Have a hypothesis, conduct the experiment, record the results then apply what you’ve learned to your next campaign.
By institutionalizing and rigorously applying this 10% rule you just might be the first to uncover the next great insight that redefines your industry.
Stay curious my friends.
