Marketing is child's play

Really. Check out these Schools of Marketing.

The Magic Pudding School of Marketing “If I do just one thing, once, the marketing will just keep giving and giving”. I come across a lot of proponents of the Magic Pudding School within small business; folk who run one ad, once, and then sit back and wait for that ad to give and give. Or try Twitter for a day. And then wait for all the enquiries to come in. Or set up Facebook – and then wait for the magic. No one single thing in marketing is likely to keep bringing your results – it has to be massaged and tended to – and repeated over and over again. The Pinata School of Marketing

Thank you to David at Cubiq for this wonderful analogy. The Pinata School of Marketing describes those folk who are basically blind folded, with a big stick, hitting madly and wildly at everything they can hoping that just one more go will release the sweet stuff. Imagine that the Pinataa itself is the market place. Inside are all the luscious customers. And your big stick is twitter, or facebook, or advertising, or sponsorship.... And – if you have a lot of time and resources to keep throwing out there – this can work for you. Really. If you just keep bashing away long enough eventually you will strike gold. But do you have a lot of time and endless resources? The Field of Dreams

If we build it – they will come. Supporters of this type of marketing believe that there concept/brand/business is so strong that as soon as they launch word of mouth will spread like wild-fire and that will be enough to carry the business forward. One of the inherent problems of The Field of Dreams School of Marketing is that the minute there is a new team in the league; the minute you drop the ball; as soon as someone out in the market places changes the line-marking; without anything to flame the Word Of Mouth and ensure that your crowd screams the loudest, it’s not enough to keep you at the top of the table (or – the top of mind for your customers).

The Little Red Engine that Could You have to admire the persistence of the Little Red Engine that Could marketers. In fact the repetition of the same marketing tactics over and over again SHOULD be rewarded – as long as you are repeating the same right tactic, an activity that sends the right message direct to your customers. But at some point when you continue doing the same thing over and over – and it isn’t getting any traction, when it is just as tough to chug up that hill – you need to look at getting a new caboose!

So – what School of Marketing do I believe in? The Sara Lee School of Marketing You put together a great recipe (Define your strategy). You find the best ingredients – mixed together in the right order and given the right amount of time to cook (Select your tactics) And then you serve it up, beautifully presented, to your guests (Your promotion). Marketing is “layer upon layer upon layer” (And at Sara Lee that is 95 layers for every danish, nom, nom, nom). Got any other ‘schools of marketing’ that you have come across? Come play....