The habit of marketing

Grant Leboff: One of the observations, I think, you make in the book, which certainly echoed with me is the idea that marketing isn’t just a one off thing. I think there a lot of people out there that treat marketing as, “oh yes, I did my marketing for this year or this quarter or whatever” and that, I think, in the book you refer to as a habit, which is a nice way of thinking about it. I’d love you to just expand on that a little bit more for our audience.

Bryony Thomas: Gosh, Grant, you’ve possibly found my most favorite topic. Yes! absolutely, marketing is a habit and I would say the analogy I use to get people to get this most is diet and fitness. So in many ways, people know that diet and fitness that works is a lifestyle choice. It doesn’t stop them going for that beach body promise diet that’s going to work in a week and I think if you look at the way that people respond to the messages from the diet and fitness industry and you look at some of the less sophisticated marketers out there, the correlation really is there. The get rick quick scheme or the quick hit campaign has so much correlation with how people approach fitness. So if you’re really going to get fit, if you’re really going to have an all over well being then going to the gym in January is not going to sustain you for a whole year and funnily enough, the same is true of marketing.

In the analogy we use, we say the clients you choose are like your diet. You need to choose good, healthy clients that energize you that you want to work for. That’s the food part of it and then the marketing, the activity plan is your 20 minutes a day but that is ideally put together by a personal trainer, somebody who knows what they’re talking about and understands your particular health needs. So it is diet and fitness, clients and marketing, the analogy is there.

Grant Leboff: If we keep the analogy, extend the analogy, how does someone … Because there are lots of people who are dead set on getting fitter, getting healthier, everything else and they go to the gym in January with the absolute intention of still going in June and of course, by February, they’ve stopped. If we use that analogy, going back to marketing, there’ll be people that are dead set on, “we’re going to make this work, we’re going to do this” and perhaps marketing often becomes one of these things in an organization that’s vital but not urgent.

Bryony Thomas: Always.

Grant Leboff: It gets left and whatever else, so how do people build the muscles to make sure that they just keep going because that’s like you said, when they really reap the rewards?

Bryony Thomas: Absolutely. I think it comes from making sure that you start out on a … We do a marketing transformation process and we start out by being crystal clear that it’s going to hurt for a little while but that it will be worth it. So if you’re doing a strategic marketing exercise, if you’re really making it the focus for a year, that you know that six to 12 weeks in, it probably will still hurt, but if you push through and get beyond it, it becomes addictive, like exercise, because you start to see the results. I think it’s about accepting that this is an exercise in delayed gratification and getting knowledgeable on the fundamentals so that you’re not distracted by shiny things.

If you were working with a personal trainer who had designed something for you and they come round and make you do it when you don’t want to do it, then you’re less likely to click on that ad for the shakes that you’re going to drink for a week because you’ve got someone keeping you on it. Find someone good, get them to keep you on it, understand the fundamentals and accept from the outset, that there is going to be a period of time, particularly if you can let yourself go to seed, when you’re going to have to put in more effort than you get back.

Grant Leboff: A lot of it is about managing expectation.

Bryony Thomas: It is. Marketing consultants out there really need to do a job on their own marketing of marketing because I think the promises that are made around quick wins are part of the problem here, because true business growth is sustainable and scalable, takes an initial investment of time, energy, money and commitment that for a period of time, you put in, not just a bit more, a heck of a lot more than you get back but if you get beyond it, it will pay you back over decades.

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