Marketing Strategy: Everything You Do Should Be DUMB.

Published on September 26, 2016 - By Kirk Deis

Kirk Deis is here to help flexible workspace operators get the best out of their marketing efforts. He’s going to challenge what you know, make you think outside the box, and laugh a little (seriously). Kirk is an online marketing expert and CEO TREEHOUSE 51, a Digital Ad Agency. Kirk will be writing regular articles in Allwork to help workspace operators get to grips with their online marketing. You’ll want to check out his articles, as they’ll give your workspace business” a mule-like kick up the search rankings” (his words, not ours).

It’s funny, dumb meant something entirely different to me when I was seven years old playing dodge ball with friends. As a runt, dumb was well…dumb. The simple whisper of the word had the ability to launch a genocidal food fight and for good reason, who wants to be dumb? This wasn’t something to aspire toward. It wasn’t something I remember my folks asking me to take seriously. Dumb wasn’t cool. Yet here we are. I never thought the day would come where I would ask for a bit of dumb in what we do… sorry Mom.

You see being dumb was the worst thing in the world until a few years ago. I came across a web forum where someone elegantly used dumb in the most brilliant way I had ever seen. It completely changed my perspective on well everything. That’s what we’re going to talk about today – a dumb roadmap that will change your everything – yeah, I like to set the bar pretty damn high.

To start us off, I need you to ask yourself one question at the start of this article and repeat said question at the end. I ask that you be as brutally honest as you can be. You ready? Okay, I want you to look at every part of your marketing and ask yourself, “Is this dumb?” If it’s not…why not?

THE D.u.M.b TEST

1. D is for doable.

It doesn’t matter if you’re about to launch a PPC Campaign or ten years deep marketing your brand, this first step packs a kick in the gut from a mule. How many times have you walked into a meeting and left realizing everything that was covered, although sounds lovely can’t actual be achieved?

Now, I’m not saying don’t dream. We need dreams. Especially brands. I’m saying don’t fantasize about unrealistic goals. You need to set milestones and benchmarks that are challenging and push you and your team but are also actually achievable.

The best way to figure out if your goals are doable is by starting with the data. Breakdown the last three months, year, etc and place this in front of your marketing plan and be honest if your goals are an achievable dream or just a fantasy.

2. U is for understandable.

In my world, the most common issue I come across with prospects are levels of not understanding certain aspects of marketing. I blame Google for this and well Ask Jeeves. I kid; it’s all mostly Ask Jeeves fault. Sorry, dumb marketing joke.

You’ve heard of SEO, PPC, Social Media Management but what the heck do these buzz words actually mean? Brands spend millions of dollars each year on these catchphrases but most never spend more than a week talking about their true meaning.

It’s not your fault. Brands hire digital agencies like mine, www.Treehouse51.com, to be their experts. In some cases, that works. But what happens to brands that don’t want to hire outside help? Where do they stand?

When you’re working on your marketing ask yourself if you understand what the process is and what will be reported on. If you can’t understand that on some basic level, odds are the plan needs a little bit more work because areas were skipped over.

The flip side to this – let’s say you are reporting on your PPC Campaigns and it needs to be reported in an understandable way. We’ve all seen “fluff reports” with information overload that doesn’t mean thing to understanding where we are with our goals but does take a few trees to create. That’s dumb but in a bad way guys. We kind of need trees. 

3. M is for measurable. 

There’s no point doing anything if you can’t measure it. Let me ask you this; let’s say you launch a YouTube viral campaign tomorrow for 7K. Six months go by and you weren’t tracking any results. Now you’re thinking of doing another video for another 7K.

I love videos. But did you know on YouTube you can track things like demographics? So let’s say your original video only appealed to males that were 25. Does it make sense to film a new video that speaks to all genders and ages? Or do you think you’d have more success creating a tailored video that defines your audience?

Being able to measure your marketing efforts will save you time, energy and most of all money. This goes back to the data. Everything does. If you can’t measure the data you’re flying blind in a tornado of noise pissing away 7K.

4. B is for beneficial.

Is what you’re doing actually beneficial? Is it helping your brand? Is it advancing your overall goals? Or do you feel perhaps backed into a corner and forced to move forward because this train just isn’t slowing down?

This is the hardest part to come to terms with for yourself and your brand – not everything being done is actually beneficial. In fact, a good chunk of what you’re doing is out of habit or industry trends.

Here’s the problem with that, you know what happens when you highlight every word in a book? You’ve highlighted nothing.

I recommend taking a hard look at your processes and defining the benefit of what you’re doing. You need to approach this step, as a challenge because I guarantee if you don’t your competitor will.

FINAL THOUGHTS…

If it ain’t D.u.M.b. it ain’t right.

When TREEHOUSE 51 meets with clients to talk about marketing we keep things dumb because it works. I promise if you take a step back and follow this approach you will see significant advances in your marketing. That’s just the power of being dumb. Try it.

PS.  I’m not a fan of articles that just end without saying goodbye so here’s a free guide our agency made for a little website called Facebook. It’s called, The Ultimate Guide To Facebook Leads Ads  — hope you find it useful and yes a little dumb. Again, sorry Mom.