Marketing – its just like football

Football – Photo used under creative commons license – property of Ron Almog

It is the ultimate team sport. Football is one of the classic american sports. Played by young and not so young guys at picnics, in the park, and if you are good, on TV.

If you watch football, you will notice something. There are 11 different players, 1 playbook. Each player has a specific set of skills, strengths and weaknesses. First there are the linemen: big strong, tough. The foundation of your offense. They aren’t flashy, but without them you wouldn’t score many touchdowns. There are also the stars! The QB, receivers, running backs & tight ends. These guys are the ones that get the glory. Throwing passes, catching touchdowns, running through the defense, scoring the goal! Each player has a specific assignment on each play. Each player though, relies on the playbook to know what their goal and assignments are!

Marketing is exactly the same.

First – Start with your playbook

First you start with your playbook. Your marketing strategy. This will tell you what plays you have available, and which marketing players to use to meet the goal of that play. Your playbook should include a few key things

1. Tools & Platforms – i.e. social media, website, blogging, direct mail, brochures etc.
2. Strategy – long term marketing goals – i.e. develop a loyal fan base, create awareness of a new product, drive increased sales
3. Plays – short term plans – i.e. specific marketing campaign ideas.

Second – Make a plan

Run the Play!

The second step is using the strategies, plays, tools and platforms in your playbooks and implement them. Start running campaigns to promote your company. Engage with current customers. Fill in your content calendar and follow it. Create awesome content that people will love to share. Track it to death.

Third – Analyze

The third step is analyzing. This is crucial and often forgotten, or not prioritized nearly high enough. There are a few things you need to be tracking for proper analysis.

1. Response to your call to action. Did people do what you wanted them to do (Share, call, schedule appointment, buy product, etc.)
2. If it was a multi-channel campaign, which channels performed best, which performed worst.
3. What secondary actions did the campaign trigger?
4. Based on the analytics was the campaign a success?
5. Time frame of the campaign – did the campaign run long enough or too long? (sometimes a campaign doesn’t appear to be successful until it runs for a longer period of time).
6. Record – take time to record your findings and add them to your playbook so that in 6 months or 2 years when you run a similar campaign you can reference this and tweak your campaign appropriately.

Fourth – Tweak & Repeat

The fourth step is where persistence comes in. Take the information from steps one through three. Tweak the weak areas, amplify the strong areas. Repeat. Marketing is not once and done. It should be a continual ongoing part of your company. If your marketing is done right, it will bring value to the company. instead of draining resources, it will be an investment that will score touchdown after touchdown!