Imagine a huge table. On the table is every tool you can think of. Now imagine you have to build a house. Try to do two things.
First, take away the one tool you could do without. Second, pick up the one tool that can handle the entire project.
You can’t do either.
Every tool has a purpose, and only that tool works for that purpose.
The same goes for marketing. But now more than ever, too many marketers are looking for the single solution — a magic bullet — that will do it all.
They hope that if they just focus on digital ads, or social media, or email, or content creation, that will be enough to reach their goals.
And it’s made worse by all the people promoting their tool as the only one you’ll ever need. They say it’s a digital world. Everything is going social. Content is king.
But it doesn’t work that way. Because when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Every marketing tool is designed to do a specific thing. For every task, a tool. And the work of each is amplified by the others.
Of course, you don’t need every tool. Just the right tools for the marketing work you’re trying to accomplish.
That means laying out specific goals first, then matching the tools to the goals. Because the best tools in the world are worthless without a blueprint.
Especially now, it makes sense to reset your goals, then choose the marketing tools that are most likely to get you there.
Blueprint. Then tools. Traditional tools. Brand-new tools. Whatever works for your goals. That’s how to build a strong marketing program.