Month: March 2023

Overcoming Marketing Challenges

There is a story about Xerxes I, the King of Kings in Persia, who was trying to cross into Greece at Hellespont but a storm destroyed their bridge. Xerxes ordered that the water be punished by lashing it and burning it. He also beheaded all of the engineers.

What does this have to do with marketing, you ask? Well, marketing is all about overcoming obstacles and achieving goals. Like Xerxes, marketers face challenges every day that seem insurmountable. It could be a tight budget, a competitive market, or changing consumer behavior. But just like Xerxes, marketers must be determined and find ways to overcome these challenges.

If your marketing isn’t pulling the results you need, don’t punish the water. You need to lean in and address the three “R”s.

  1. Reevaluate your goals. Maybe they are unrealistic and totally unachievable. Perhaps you bit off more than you can chew?
  2. Reassess your strategies. Are they lining up with your key objectives? If not, adjust them.
  3. Resist the unimportant. Your time is valuable—focus your energy on the things that matter most!

Xerxes’ attempt to beat the ocean may seem like a foolish and futile act, but it serves as a metaphor for all marketers to stay in the moment and work for results.

THINK: Are you on track to hit your goals?

THOUGHT: To achieve goals you’ve never achieved before, you need to start doing things you’ve never done before. -Stephen R. Covey

Marketing to the end of the row.

I grew up next to a large apple orchard. I never bothered to count all of the trees, suffice it to say there were a lot and—like all living things—they needed water.

To accomplish this my dad would hook the plow up to the tractor and systematically carve straight and deep furrows down each row next to the trees. 

Then came my favorite part. 

Every couple of weeks we’d get to drop in the headgate which would create a dam in the creek and divert the mountain stream around our property in a series of smaller channels or ditches. When the water got to the orchard it would spill through openings in the embankment and spread down the hundreds of smaller furrows that dad had plowed. However, there were always the furrows that I had tromped down while playing in the orchard which prevented the water from getting to the end of the row. I didn’t know this was a problem until my dad taught me a core principle—to succeed in my job I needed to eliminate obstructions in order for the water to flow down a clear path to the trees. It was simple. No water, no trees. No trees, no apples.

As a kid learning how to irrigate an orchard required a shovel to dig out the dirt I’d kicked into the furrow. As a marketer learning how to attract customers requires the right message and the right channels for that message to reach the right audience.

THINK: Do you need to clean out any marketing furrows? Can you simplify the path to communicate with your prospect? Are there any rocks or weeds you need to clear away?

THOUGHT: “We have neglected the truth that a good farmer is a craftsman of the highest order, a kind of artist.” – Wendell Berry