Are You Eating That Marketing Elephant?

In this opinion piece, Melotti Media founder Christopher Melotti (pictured below) explains how marketers can keep up with the rapidly evolving industry landscape one bite at a time.
There’s no doubt about it – marketing is changing so rapidly that it’s almost becoming an impossible evolving enigma. Gone are the days when all that was needed was to print a pretty picture onto a page and show it to a mass audience to get them to come to you.
Today, we have an ever-growing list of new and expanding marketing tactics, including: automation, smartphone applications, augmented reality, conversion rate optimisation, big data, live streaming, blogging, digital, social media, neuromarketing, retargeting, SEO, content management, tracking pixels, post boosting, sponsored listings, AdWords, relationships, viral… the list goes on and on.
So, it’s no wonder why marketers these days are immersed and overwhelmed; it’s both an exciting time to be in the profession, but also a daunting one. Every marketer should always strive to be on the cutting edge of our practice, but there are only so many hours in the day. It’s like you need a clone of yourself to be doing the day-to-day while you sit and study every new technique invented that week just to keep up.
It really is up to us as marketers to keep ahead
Naturally, not everything that pops up is always relevant, effective or useful, but a lot of it is, and as marketing professionals, we are solely responsible for keeping up to date with our craft. It’s not only that it’s expected of us – we also expect it of ourselves too. I practice many forms of marketing every day and employ different tactics all the time, however, I always get that one client emailing me asking if I know what some new XYZ is and how can we use it in the new campaign. It’s extremely embarrassing when you have to admit to both yourself and them that you have never heard of this XYZ they speak of.
The only way to truly keep up to date with these new techniques is to subscribe to journals and marketing blogs to at least be made aware of what’s new and upcoming, and then take the time to research and perhaps even adopt them if they fit. But, granted, it’s a mammoth task.
So, how do we deal with this?
We’re only human after all, and if your role is anything like mine, you’re already stretched pretty thin keeping up with your own marketing projects, let alone investing time everyday learning what new product Facebook has introduced to help better track your ad spend or what paper is being released on a new approach to neuromarketing. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed.
Worse still, marketers tend to be results and project-driven, which means we want to implement several different things which all sound amazing, and we want it done yesterday – and in doing so, we find ourselves in a stressed mess on the floor.
There’s hope… one bite at a time
It really comes down to that good old cliché: how do you eat a (marketing) elephant? One bite at a time. It truly is the only way to keep abreast of the profession and hold your sanity in check. One of the best pieces of advice I give to colleagues and clients is: of a list of 30 new marketing tactics, pick two or three that are most relevant to your organisation, and get them right first, before looking at the next thing.
If you do that, then you’re already winning! It means that you’re already ahead of the game, and doing it well. It’s better to focus on getting a few approaches up and running strongly and reaping solid results, than spreading your efforts poorly across too many projects at once and failing across the entire board.
For example, it would be overwhelming to adopt a massive new marketing automation platform like Marketo into a new business while at the same time, implementing a new marketing to sales support system. Sure, both would be valuable, and perhaps there will be some overlaps, but your resources and focus will be so divided that you’ll end up with an under-cooked and ineffective version of both. It’s best to assess which few tactics best align with your overall marketing strategy and utilise your assets into launching those specific programs well to produce tangible results.
No organisation’s marketing is ever perfect, but you will certainly be pushing it in the right direction by not becoming inundated, but by being selective and open to new technology and approaches as they come available.
What are your thoughts?
Latest News

WPP Shareholders Vote In Favour Of Global Takeover
WPP's shareholders have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a takeover and for Tom Williams on Dancing With The Stars.

Time Is Running Out To Nominate For B&T’s CMO Power List!
Be warned, B&T's pulled out the egg timer for our CMO power list! Votes close on Monday! Googlies strictly hard boiled.

Charlotte Crosby Launches Values & Vibrators Podcast
This is such a terrific name for a podcast, B&T was thinking of nicking it for our very own one.

Behold! All Of The Pics From B&T’s Women Leading Tech!
If there's EVER a function where you need to get the overhead projector or Powerpoint to work it's Women Leading Tech!

Dettol Launches Australian Heartland Collection Via Momentum
One need only witness the B&T office human pyramid in action to know that a trusty bottle of Dettol is always on hand.

Māori Support Network Releases First Major Brand Campaign Via Motion Sickness
B&T knows we should be bringing you more great work from NZ, however, we do struggle with that squiggly thing in Māori.

Sexist Tent Advert On Amazon Says It Would Be ‘Easy For Women To Put Up’
Sure, this is a rather sexist ad for a tent; however, it vastly undersells the sheer horror that is camping.

Isobar ANZ Wins Adobe 2021 Digital Experience Partner Of The Year Award
Isobar's fifth grade racquetball trophy discretely moved to rear of cabinet after Adobe Digital Experience Partner win.

Apple Spoofs Tom Cruise And Co With ‘Mission Implausible’ Ad For New iPad Pro
This cool Apple spot comes with a surprising end that includes Tim Cook; which probably takes the surprise out of it.

“Beginning Of The End Of The Pandemic!” Omnicom Revenues Down 1.8% In Q1, But Rebounds 9.6% From COVID
Omnicom's Q1s are in & if they were a hamburger they'd be better than a Zinger but not as good as the Whopper Baconator.

PHD Media Named Best Place To Work For Media And Marketing By AFR
Apparently the use of 'the rack' & thumbscrews in the workplace is frowned upon by the AFR's Best Places To Work Awards.

Woolies Takes Majority Stake In Quantium
Woolworths takes majority stake in Quantium, still can't get its trolleys to drive in a straight line.

Government’s Woeful ‘Milkshake’ Consent Ad Deleted
Vaccine rollouts, another Shark's loss on the weekend and now consent videos, it's been another trying week for ScoMo.

Nine’s Big Idea Store Announces Action Packed Line-Up
Nine unveils impressive Big Idea Store line-up and it's not good news for fans of dancing poodles or the wobble board.

Droga5 Goes Back To Pompeii 79AD In Epic New Work For Alexa
B&T's very conscious of overusing the word epic in headlines, but the hyperbole is definitely warranted in this beauty.

Coke Criticised At Shareholder Meeting For Exacerbating Health Issues In American Communities Of Colour
Coke criticised for exacerbating health issues in communities of colour, not to mention communities generally.

Ampol Completes Its Australian Return In New Campaign From Saatchi & Saatchi And iProspect
When it comes to brand loyalty to a petrol station, B&T chooses anyone with a Slurpee machine & Krispy Kreme cabinet.

Klarna Launches Carbon Footprint Insights For 90 Million Customers
Klarna has announced the launch of CO2 insights for all shopping purchases as part of its one per cent pledge, involving the donation of $10 million to initiatives supporting planet health. The new feature aims to democratise access to unbiased climate impact information for consumers at no cost or judgement, as a first step to […]

Tuesday TV Wrap: Nine News Wins The Night As Lego Masters And MasterChef Have Post Premiere Dip
Lego Masters & MasterChef in need of a large pump device and doctor's prescription after suffering "post premiere dip".

Will AR Get Rid Of Shop Changerooms?
Could AR be the new way of trying on clothes? It would certainly beat dodgy changerooms with broken locks.

Purple iPhones, AirTags And Huge Changes For Advertisers: Everything You Need To Know From The Apple Launch
There was big news coming out of California last night. Fortunately, it wasn't that The Rock is running for President.

Sitecore Study: Aussie Gen Zs Flock To Internet Commerce Sites During Pandemic
Study says Zs have been online shopping during the pandemic when they should've been squeezing their zits in the mirror.

DoubleVerify Uncovers And Stops ‘OctoBot’: Unprecedented CTV-Focused Fraud Scheme With Multiple Tentacles
Grab the lemon and the tartare sauce because we're talking OctoBots in this tasty cephalopod read.

Instagram Influencer Marketing Set To Become A $7.4B Industry In 2021
Influencer economy tipped to reach $7.5B. That's a lot of teeth whitening sets and Hello Fresh meals being sold.

Lifting The Lid On The Marketing Machine With Accenture’s Philippa Spork
If only marketing were a machine, then all of your problems could be remedied with a spray of WD-40.

Which 50? Has The Datafication Of Advertising Finally Killed Off Adland’s Favourite Slogan?
John Wanamaker's famous adland quip has joined Prince Philip in falling agonisingly short of its 100th birthday.

YouTube Removes Ads From James Charles Videos After Child Sexting Allegations
Here's a rather unsavoury story about a YouTuber, not that we have the faintest clue who it is.

Facebook Ups Data Portability Efforts With ‘Transfer Your Information’ Tool
You can now transfer all your old crap on Facebook. Although it might be better to just delete some of the old photos.

Purpose, Or Is It Porpoise?
In his latest guest post, B&T regular Robert Strohfeldt skewers marketers’ latest buzzword – purpose… I used to flick through the various newspapers cartoons each day – reckon it would be tough trying to create a cartoon each day, based on a major news story, that is both funny and insightful. Since the PC mob […]

MILO Cereal Launches ‘Beast Mode’ Campaign Via Connecting Plots
MILO Cereal has launched its first major marketing campaign for its newly launched Protein cereal, via independent creative communications agency Connecting Plots. Building on MILO’s brand message of fuelling active kids, the new campaign platform, ‘Beast Mode – Activated’, evolves the master brand’s focus on team sports. This aims to celebrate how MILO Protein helps […]