As a culture, we’re obsessed with secrets and shortcuts. Do this one thing to lose 10 pounds overnight! You’ll be shocked by this amazing secret to a better love life! Three guaranteed secrets to sell more rubber chickens!
You’ve seen — and probably hate — the ads. But they’re out there because they’re tapping into something that motivates a whole lot of people. It’s the allure of the quick fix; it’s magical thinking.
I’ve seen marketing agencies take the same approach to sell themselves — their hook is some killer technology or creative savant or secret strategy that guarantees success.
Ready for the big secret?
There is no secret. You will get out of your digital customer generation strategy what you put in. And it’s no more mystical than budget and hard work.
Of course, CMOs must demand cutting-edge technology of their digital agency partners. They must expect intuitive, engaging design, and a holistic, user-driven set of best practices from a channel strategy standpoint. And you better believe there are — occasionally — disruptive black boxes that can drive dramatic growth when leveraged appropriately.
But the reality is less arcane, and more workmanlike. It’s the 10,000 hour rule from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers. It’s working with a partner that will proudly do the complicated work of understanding your business, your audience, your brand, and your pain points. It’s long nights developing a thoughtful, effective strategy that leverages those insights and a bunch of digital marketing best practices. And then it’s execution, countless numbers of ad and landing page iterations tested, data analysis, micro-corrections and dozens of pivot/preserve decisions.
Maybe there is magic there. It’s the magic that we make, just like we make our own luck: through hard work and good thinking.
Or to put it another way, It’s science, not alchemy. And it works. The work we do as a full service digital agency, the tools and strategies that we have at our disposal to sell interesting products to sophisticated buyers is exciting enough. We don’t need “one huge secret to quadruple you customer generation effectiveness,” because we’ve got seven key capabilities that fit perfectly together. And when we get that engine going, it can create beautiful things.
