Alligators won the marketing game last week

I was at the Southern Builders show last week at the Gaylord Palms Convention Center in Orlando. I saw lots of good products, met with some interesting people and saw some decent marketing materials.

But as a marketer, what ended up impressing me the most was the alligators and turtles in the center atrium. 

Again let me say it again, I walked a decent builders trade show, visited exhibitor websites, looked at their social media pages and what I remembered most is the…. gators in the lobby?

Attention Marketers: I am trying to tell you are not only trying to out “market” your competitors. Marketers are competing with the text message from their kids, the cool Instagram photo their friend just posted, and the ….gators.

Now you know you are competing with gators. What can you do?

You need to come up with a lot of human and real messages to reach customers wherever they are. Unfortunately, most of the marketers don’t want to work that hard. How do I know?

Gators!

Believe me—- some days I feel the same way and I only want to do the minimum.

Then I look around and say to myself. Is how I want to be remembered as a marketer that I let the gator win? No…

So, I begin the process you need to do today to beat the gator.

I begin by revisiting an old banner ad and put a fresh face on it. Scroll through the client’s social media pages, look at analytics, determine what the next post should be and post it. Look at the blog on the website, determine what I should I write next and start on a draft. I look at their website analytics to see what pages people are visiting. I go to one or two of them, add a new photo or two and a few new lines. I look at relevant media sites to see what their customers are promoting. Then I add a few new ideas on our list of things to work on. Call my video team and schedule a meeting for our next shoot. I send the most recent press release to some editors that have not run the story yet.

Then I start all over again.

Marketing is hard, even if you are involved in fashion, 3d printing, automotive, or architecture… is not glamorous or easy today.

Especially if you want to beat out the gators.

Looking for a marketer willing to beat the gator?

Contact me at [email protected].