Gimmicks v. Strategy
When I see agency marketing in the wild I typically experience one of two distinct reactions.
The first, and admittedly less common response, is admiration. It’s respect, appreciation, and a tinge of envy all wrapped up in one. These people are doing good work and I want to learn from them.
The second, more common response, is irritation. This one is more cynicism, annoyance, and exasperation. I don’t know the quality of work these people are doing but I know they’re not doing themselves any favors and I want to help them.
These feelings are directly linked to how people think about marketing, and there are two different approaches.
One is as a strategy to offer more value to your potential customers. The other is as a tactic to get more eyeballs on your product or service. Many people aspire to achieve the former but end up settling for the latter.
So, what are the differences, categorically, between the marketing that makes me admire it or recoil from it?
Types of Agency Marketing
Broadly, I break it down into three distinct types of agency marketing tactics. And note that a firm’s approach doesn’t necessarily exist in only one category - you can slip between designations quickly and nearly imperceptibly. I’ll also note that, obviously, you can slice and dice marketing approaches into thousands of categories, but consider this the more-helpful-and-accurate-than-you-think “vibe check” approach.
1 - Volume-Driven Marketing
I’m going to get this one out of the way first - it triggers irritation. These are the marketing tactics that have the least amount of substance. They’re blog posts like “10 Reasons Why You Should Outsource Your Marketing”, email newsletters that simply aggregate industry news, or LinkedIn posts sharing the firm’s “Services” page.
This is marketing just to say you put something out there. It indicates a lack of planning and a hope that you simply find someone (anyone) with the right message at the right time. It’s not helpful. It’s not differentiated. And worst of all, it’s not interesting.
2 - Gimmick-Driven Marketing
Gimmicks can be very interesting. But interesting doesn’t always mean beneficial. These are the tactics that trigger a different form of irritation, often accompanied by the thought, “you spent time on that?”.
A marketing gimmick attempts to attract attention or new customers quickly without offering much (if any) value in return. Oftentimes, it looks a lot like a failed attempt at virality.
Gimmicks can take many forms but the recent batch I’ve seen are agency-created digital tools with fun branding. Unfortunately, these gimmicks remind me of a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy. A great way to keep the kids entertained in the backseat, but destined for the trashcan within a week.
Gimmicks can work, but they often require two key components for success. Volume and utility.
McDonald’s gets to market to billions of people, so they don’t need to achieve virality. Viral is their constant state. For agencies, gimmicky marketing tactics that fish for customers require a certain amount of volume for success. Most firms don’t have audiences in the hundreds of thousands and need to get incredibly lucky to reach that number of people.
Even more important than volume is utility. Is the thing you’re creating actually helpful to your intended audiences? Most of the time that digital tool, social media challenge, or promotional contest isn’t. Be honest with yourself.
3 - Strategy-Driven Marketing
The firms that are able to successfully market themselves do so by creating strategic plans that are based on being helpful to their potential clients and differentiated in their thinking.
This approach becomes very clear when you see some piece of content (blog, social media post, speaker abstract, etc.) that does three things:
Makes it very clear who the intended audience is
Offers something that will help that intended audience
Presents a new way of thinking, a new way of doing, or a new way of existing
It’s not easy to do - and certainly not easy to do regularly.
That’s why we settle for gimmicks and why we simply check the marketing box. But it’s also why the firms that can adopt a strategy-driven approach are so successful - they stand out.
