They are documents that are crafted with such care; objectives that lead to strategies, flow into tactics and finally get wrapped up with measurements as a big, satisfying bow. As marketers, the act of creating a marketing plan is part of our DNA, part of the joy of being a marketer. They’re neat, tidy and when you accomplish your goal – very satisfying.
While I’ve probably written more than a hundred of them, I’m seeing the value more and more of the Un-Marketing plan. Of course, marketing plans still have their value, and our business still uses one, but for us, the Un-Marketing plan is the present that’s just as pretty.
The Un-Marketing plan is based on moving on a potential business/creative situation, even though all of the pieces aren’t in place. It’s an approach many businesses need to take so they can stay nimble to adjust to the latest opportunities in the fast-moving economy. For us, the approach is best used when an idea is in its infancy since putting the concept in a formal marketing plan might kill it since it would be shoved too far aside.
To give you some background, our company, Gamma Blast creates TV and web content and programming for recording artists and companies. We recently saw the value of the Un-Marketing strategy.
It began last year. Through a relationship our Executive Producer fostered, we began talks with D1 training gyms about how we could work together. It is a company of sports-training/workout facilities with a center in Franklin that’s one of 11 in the South and Midwest. What differentiates it from other gyms is it trains players for the NFL combine.
We brokered a deal to get the rights to film there, to create stories around one of its trainers. We didn’t have any distribution for the finished product, how it would be financed or even really exactly what it would look like. We did know it trained high-profile players and NFL players own a portion of the business. We saw potential and had patience to keep building the flavors slowly like a fine soup, on the back burner.
A year passed. Then as luck would have it, a relationship built in NAMA (yes, NAMA) led the pieces to fall into place. A NAMA friend had a contact at ESPN who needed a small video piece shot in town. We parlayed that piece into more work. Then once we built the relationship, we realized this was an opportunity we needed for our D1 idea. We sold a web series for one of ESPN’s websites based on sports training that’s being shot at D1.
Was it a structured process tied up with a bow? No, but once you get used to the un-marketing process, the results can be just as pretty.
By Liz Denning. Liz is Co-owner/Marketing Director of Gamma Blast and Communications Co-Chair for NAMA. She’s been a member since 2009.
