2021 has been prolific year packed with new client campaigns to help sales teams acquire leads, close deals and nurture clients. We have jokingly referred to it as the year of ‘Getting Shi*t Done’.
Of course, while this is a rather light-hearted view of things it belies a more serious message. Too many business owners and marketers get held back. And when it comes to growth marketing, a tendency towards perfectionism is one of the biggest barriers to making activities a tangible success.
Whenever a business tries something new—whether it’s running an event, webinar, or even just a lead generation email campaign—the first-time round is bound to take far longer if perfection is the goal. To tell the truth, in the past this has also held us back at Attract & Engage.
However, at the start of 2021 we decided to shake things up and free ourselves of the shackles. Why? Because we realised that the countless philosophies around improved marketing output and improved ROI were causing a kind of creative paralysis. Because we see ‘pluckiness’ as a path to efficient working and rampant ingenuity, a powerful combination that often yields the best results.
Twelve months into this new approach and we want to share it with ambitious client businesses. We want you to become a plucky marketer too. By recognising that your marketing doesn’t have to start perfect, you’ll become more creative. You’ll be able to get your message out more quickly to your target audience. You’ll be able to assess what works, and what doesn’t, more quickly. You’ll be able to drive more results into 2022.
Ready? Here’s how to get started with three ‘plucky’ tactics to consider now
- Try a mini-campaign
A great way to dip your toe into the plucky waters and de-risk while you test ideas is to run a mini-campaign.
Usually small, low in cost and targeted at a single audience with a single content theme.
Often you can pull a mini-campaign together in days (or even hours with the right minds on the job). Because of the lower risk you can afford to experiment with ideas, angles and messages. Use this as a test to uncover what really connects with your audience.
A mini-campaign lends itself to display ads, a webinar, paid search, and paid socials.
- ‘Create Once, Publish Everywhere’ (COPE)
Blog posts, webinar content, email newsletters, social posts, case studies. You’ve invested a tonne of time, expertise, and budget into creating content from scratch. It is therefore only right that this content works damn hard for you, everywhere! The COPE technique is about repurposing existing content in as many ingenious ways as possible.
Transcription is also an incredible tool. If you consider most of us speak at a rate of one word per second, an hour-long briefing or webinar could easily result in 3,600 words of quality content that can be repurposed to become a PDF gated guide, lead generation email journey, and LinkedIn sales prospecting messaging.
- Automate processes
In plucky marketing pace is key. So, it makes sense to automate routine processes and establish templates, checklists and reusable formats for as much as possible.
Types of automation you could consider include, social posts generated when a new blog publishes on your site, dynamic email templates that automatically ad blog content, and inspiration lists that ensure, even on a slow day, you can turn content around quickly and with less cognitive energy.
With the routine under control, you can then devote more time to taking risks and experimenting to create impact.
To wrap things up—if you’re short on time and resources but still want to achieve note-worthy results—plucky marketing is the approach for you.
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