Why your marketing strategy is insane
A bold blanket statement but true. Bear with me and you'll agree.
A few months ago, I came across an idea that immediately spoke to the very core of my marketing beliefs. It was the first time I had read something that made me stop what I was doing, turn the music down, sit up and read it again. Little did I know that this was just the first step into a rabbit hole of clarity and enlightenment.
Let me introduce to you the concept of a contrarian. For those not familiar with the term, here is the Oxford dictionary definition:
The irony of it all is that I had heard of this concept before. We all have in one way or another. But I had never applied it to marketing. I, like most people, probably left it in the world in which they heard it, investing.
For those still in doubt, let me demonstrate a few phrases that you will have undoubtedly heard.
"Buy when there is blood in the streets" by infamous investor and British Nobleman Baron Rothschild.
Or for a more modern twist, we need only to look at one of the most successful investors in our generation, Warren Buffet, "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful."
But in the context of this article,
"You pay a very high price in the stock market for a cheery consensus."
Too often companies are pushing for more growth when they are doing the same things as their competitors. Especially in this day and age, you need more to cut through the marketing noise that all consumers are facing and find ways for them to remember you.
This is where being a contrarian can make all the difference.
The very basis of the contrarian position or strategy is going against market trends or sentiments. Or if we boil it down a bit further, doing what no one else is doing. As you may have deduced yourself, this success is not limited to finance but can be seen across every industry by first movers.
Even in marketing, companies that are the ones to first try out a new channel or marketing strategy have unbridled success until the mass moves in and brings it to consensus.
Obviously, every company wants to do this, but before we get into that, I want to expand on the definition of contrarian a bit more.
Below is the contrarian matrix.
Decisions that you make can be broadly broken down into four quadrants: you can be right, wrong, consensus or contrarian as seen above. Now, the right quadrant, this is where it is the magic lies. If your decision is wrong, then it doesn’t matter if it is contrarian or consensus, wrong is wrong. However, if you do something that is right and all your competitors are doing it then there is no benefit and you might as well be wrong.
If every company wants to increase their growth and they use the same channels and strategies as their competitors, then they are merely hoping that their creatives and brand message will work better.
Does this sound familiar?
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
Does your marketing strategy involve optimising different channels and channel mixes? Changing the discount slightly? "New" brand campaign with the same USP's? Different creatives on the paid social ads?
Most will read through this and immediately discount themselves.
We are not like that. And that may be true. But ask yourself this, What was the most exciting piece of marketing you did in the last year? Or better yet, ask your marketing team and see what the response is.
Now, I am not advocating stopping all your marketing channels and pursuing the ones that your competitors are not using. There is probably a good reason those channels are not in use. However, what I am advocating is changing the way you view these channels and the growth targets you have.
Do not simply object against everything or try to do the opposite of your competitors but instead challenge the consensus of the thinking.
This is more eloquently explained by the investor, Naval Ravikant.
“A contrarian isn’t one who always objects — that’s a conformist of a different sort. A contrarian reasons independently, from the ground up, and resists pressure to conform.”
Take a step back from simply optimizing and launching new discounts and create a structure within your marketing teams that allow them to explore contrarian ideas. Give them the freedom and enthusiasm to create and execute campaigns that will genuinely put a smile on their faces and your customers will be soon to follow. Foster a failing forward mentality and move away from the herd.
Look deeper into your core customers and understand what content, campaigns and creatives would truly inspire them and don't be afraid to step outside the norm. As a manager, you must push your team outside of their comfort zone whilst protecting the financial and brand risk of the company. This is one of the most crucial aspects of pushing a contrarian strategy or structure. Creating the space for the out of the box ideas but limiting the risk to the company if they do not work.
This is where the true step changes in growth that you are seeking are waiting and not in the optimising of the channels you currently use. It may be that 9 of the 10 ideas do not work but the 10th idea, that could be the one that hits all of your yearly targets in one quarter.
I will leave you with one of my most favourite pieces of marketing - The Dollar Shave Club.
After the video launched, which defied all consensus marketing at the time, they acquired over 12,000 subscribers in 24 hours. They were later acquired by Unilever for 1 billion dollars.