Everything I’ve learned from marketing in 10 years (5 years later)

In the process of moving this blog from the old rusty diesel engine to the new shiny WordPress engine, old post drafts popped up like dead fish in a pond after an accident involving lots of chemicals. One was titled Everything I’ve learned about marketing in ten years. It didn’t have an ending or a beginning yet, it was just a sketchy list but surprisingly it made a bit of sense. So I dusted it off and edited it to be readable, but didn’t add or remove anything. Here goes:

Stand for something. A little bit better than the competition leaves everyone cold. If you have nothing to say, there’s no need to shout about it.*

One message at a time.*

When conducting market research, ask only whether the message you are sending out has been received as intended, and nothing else. The one thing you definitely shouldn’t ask your customers is “what would you like to have”. *

Always put 10% of your budget in risky channels and promotions ie. where they might bomb but, if successful, that generates a healthy ROI.*

Work for a boss that wants big change.**

Test where the limits that shouldn’t be crossed are, with advertising or whatever you have to play with. ***

None of the above tips apply if you just want to sell a bit of goods, and not do something remarkable.

Footnotes AD 2012:

* Fully agree to this day, I thank the year 2007 version of myselt for the reminder.
** 2012 addition: or be an entrepreneur that wants big change.
*** Back in 2007 most of my marketing career had been in media or FMCG, where there’s hardly any disruption in the business itself. So it made a lot of sense to push the limits with communications, because this was all there was. With startups, you’re so much closer to disrupting businesses and business models and there’s much less of a need to do scandalous communications.

Please help me complete the commandments of marketing. What have I missed?