I work in an organization that reveres numbers. The organization is so number-conscious that even the numbers are numbered, so you can look up numbers by number when you have to find a number.
And that’s fine. There are places in the world for numbers. Inside a computer, for instance. Great place for numbers. On the backs of hockey jerseys. In ZIP codes and phone numbers. In batting averages. On speedometers.
You’ll never find me doing a Lord Byron mashup and saying that I have not loved numbers/And numbers have not loved me/So let us part fair foes. No, sirree. Not this kid.
I really, truly am okay with numbers. Except when they get in the way of great marketing.
The No. 1 way this happens is when the lack of numbers, the lack of definitive numbers, or the lack of appropriate numbers delays or prevents a decision. Sometimes it’s almost as if management has a Ouija board comprised of numbers. They ask the board a question and place their hands lightly on the thingummy and set it in motion, and write down the number when it stops, and compare that against the pro forma, and if they don’t match it’s sent back to Marketing for further study. And then Charles Babbage emerges from a cabinet and announces it’s time for tea.
This runs counter to the philosophical underpinnings of all the major schools of marketing, but it’s particularly offensive to graduates of the Bob Dylan School of Marketing.
The Bob Dylan School of Marketing has as its motto, engraved on a rather largish shield, the famous line from “Subterranean Homesick Blues”: “You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”
Its curriculum includes Gut Instinct 370 and Playing Your Hunches 225.
Its faculty includes Steve Jobs and Lee Iacocca – and Bobby D, of course.
From its initial orientation session all the way through to graduation it soothes and challenges students with these words: It’s all right to make decisions because you just Know.
You don’t have to be an expert’s expert. You don’t need a mess of numbers. You don’t need a biomass-plant-in-the-making’s worth of reports. You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. You just have to Know. And once you know, you go.
I realize the Bob Dylan School of Marketing willfully swims against the current of metrics-driven modern marketing, but it’s not simply contrarian for the sake of being contrary. The Bob Dylan School of Marketing exists because what it teaches is common sense – the essence of marketing.
Let me give you an example. My friend the Successful Professional Poker Player says winning at poker is less than 20 percent knowing the cards and more than 80 percent knowing the players. It’s marketing, baby.
Let me give you another example. Two years ago my friend Tamara the Number-Cruncher noticed that sales of Product B, which was generally considered to be overpriced and poorly designed, were growing at precisely the same rate that sales of Product A, which was thought to be the company’s flagship product in that segment.
One day the COO happened to drop by her cubicle (it’s a fairly small company).
“I won’t begin to tell you what to do,” Tamara said. “But if I were COO, the first thing I’d do is release a kick-ass Product B.”
I talked to her last week. The market has shifted even more emphatically in the direction of Product B, she said, and her company’s Product B is still a laggard. There’s still no kick-ass Product B. The numbers haven’t been right.
What numbers? Tamara found the numbers that matter: sales results, demographically divided and longitudinally observed. She knows where the product is and where it’s going. She knows her price points and where the areas of price resistance are. She knows the players in her market. She has drawn a box around her market and profiled its inhabitants. She Knows. What more is there, really?
It’s like she’s a professional baseball player at the plate. She steps out of the batter’s box and looks at the outfielders. They’re shading her to hit the ball to the opposite field.
She knows that every time this year she’s been played the other way the pitcher threw her inside fastballs. She knows this pitcher likes to throw inside fastballs.
Now somewhere she knows most assuredly that there’s a coach on her team who has compiled all these tendencies and can give her a probability that the next pitch will be an inside fastball. She could also observe several pitches to see if she gets an inside fastball. Three pitches might provide a reassuring level of statistical significance. If they’re all strikes, at least the hypothesis was supported.
The other option is for her to say, “I’m going to get an inside fastball,” open her stance, and jack it down the line.
Not only is the latter option eminently more satisfying, it’s the right thing to do.
To return to the hallowed halls of the Bob Dylan School of Marketing, what does it take to know which way the wind blows?
Well, you have to be outside, for one. Looking at the radar map is just a numerical approximation of actually being out in it. Get out in the field. Do some legwork. Talk to people. I really don’t care whether this is a continually wired, Twitterfied, instant-feedback era. Nothing – nothing – compares with sitting face-to-face with a person and talking.
Second, you have to be able to tell the wind from the hot air. That’s where numbers help. People lie; the right numbers don’t. Numbers are a check on what you Know. They are not a substitute.
Finally, you can’t be blocked or sheltered. That means working, living and thinking holistically – ignoring the largely artificial lines of department, management level and job description. You need to have a touch of graphic designer, production-line supervisor and IT programmer in you. The worst mistake one of my clients ever made was thinking they were big enough to wall off their marketing people, put each one in a box and say, “This is what you do now. Be happy about it.” They took the dimensions away from multidimensional people, and then paid more to have outside people do the same work less well. To have great marketing, you need to let the wind blow and the river run.
This all sounds fine, if a bit high-blown. How do you make it work in your organization?
The first step is to wean managers off of numbers. Start removing numbers from your reports. Move them into charts and graphs, gradually take the numbers off of those, then remove the charts and graphs. Remember though that these are powerful crutches, for you and for your audiences. You have to be skilled enough to paint a picture using words, or else it’s back to the numbers.
Second, foster the concepts of personal contact and cross-functionality in all you do, even if you’re the most humble marketing line worker. Walk over to someone’s desk instead of sending an e-mail. Mock up a brochure instead of just sending copy. Work on being a one-person shop. The reason the guitar lick on “Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress” sounds so freaking amazing is because the person who was playing guitar picked up a guitar for the first time minutes before he laid down that lick. Cross-functionality leads to surprising outcomes.
Third, don’t forget that bullet points can kill. If you write better paragraphs than bullet points, write paragraphs. The tyranny of the bullet point is a horrible thing.
The revolt against metrics-based marketing is coming, and I’m not saying that because I despise metrics-based marketing. It’s just that people find ways to get new numbers, they get infatuated with those numbers, the relationship cools, and it’s back to looking at people again because they’re far more interesting.
And you don’t need to be a weatherman to know that wind has been blowing a very long time.
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