Meatball Sundae

Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?

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Sometimes when you mix two good ideas, you can come up with something incompatible. A meatball sundae sounds entirely unappetizing, even though in and of themselves meatballs might taste nice and ice cream sundaes taste good.

The same thing is happening in marketing today. Think of traditional marketing vehicles as being like meatballs. Many successful companies have been built from the ground up using conventional marketing strategies and techniques. When these companies try and add in the new marketing devices like social networks, blogs, Google and all the other interesting stuff, all you end up doing is adding an ice cream sundae topping on the top of meatballs. It doesn’t work. You cannot merely layer some new marketing over traditional marketing and expect it to work.

Marketing determines what kind of business you build. Therefore, instead of asking how all these cool new tools can be added to your existing marketing arsenal, consider what kind of organization you need to build and be in order to use these new tools to their maximum effectiveness.

New marketing devices are radically transforming what gets made, how it gets made and hoe it gets sold right across the economy. Successful organizations get to be that way by leveraging what works rather than by trying to bend the world the world to suit themselves. The companies that will prosper in the future will use new tactics that combine fresh and innovative marketing with products and services that are fundamentally aligned with the realities of today.

You can either get immersed in new marketing today and start making superior ice cream sundaes or you can keep trying to make better meatballs in the vain hope that someone will notice and buy what you make. We’re at the crossroads. Which path will your organization take?

What business are you in? Marketing determines the answer to that, and marketing just changed.

–Seth Godin