The GSCA Marketing Symposium held
during the 2017 International Conference in September yielded plenty of great
insights and recommendations. I heard many attendees, including myself, leaving
with visions of putting into practice what they learned upon their return home.
What
I’m curious to know is, did anyone actually implement what they said they
would? During a recent GSCA Twitter Chat, that question was posed to those
participating and largely went unanswered. This brings up an important
institutional question.
How
do we take that stoked feeling that accompanies terrific learning obtained
outside our offices and put it into practice inside our organizations?
The
answer is, we’ve got to sell it!
It’s
amazing that as marketers, and those familiar with selling ideas all the time,
we forget we need to do this, but we all do.
We
must build a groundswell of support, achieving buy-in throughout the
institution. We need to cultivate and shape opinions, inspire others and prove the
ideas will result in actionable, and most importantly, profitable outcomes.
The
minute I got back from the conference, I targeted three clients I knew could
benefit from instituting Net Promoter Score (NPS) tactics in their surveys.
I
then built my case with multiple constituencies—marketing, operations, sales,
finance, and the executive suite—targeting my brief pitch to each, using direct
cases and information delivered during the Symposium. I was no longer the champion for the idea, I was now one
of many, who all had different reasons for why they supported its implementation.
Inside
one month, they were all utilizing NPS. Inside three months they were already
experiencing results in terms of new marketing messages, prioritizing goals and
objectives, operational changes, customer service, and engagement.
Don’t
let your best ideas get passed over, or worse, ignored for a lesser idea with a
lower probability of success. Sell your idea. Create the case for it, and help
others to envision it as their own.
Championing
an idea is good. Multiple champions actually transform the idea into practice.
What Did You Put Into Practice?
Please share with us the ideas from the Conference and Symposium that you transformed into
practice. Include your comments below, or send them to tammy@giantscreencinema.com.
Click here to access videos of the Marketing Symposium sessions and the presenter materials (member login required).
Submitted by Rich Swietek, Friendly Giant Marketing. Connect with Rich via E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn