Right now moving on my mind.
No, I’m not moving. But my friend is. And I’m helping her pack.
It’s an interesting thing, packing. While you’re sorting through all your possessions, deciding what goes and what stays, the past often has more sway than the future.
Moving forces you to come face to face with who you are. Every possession, trinket or piece of junk holds a story. We aren’t just pack-rats. We’re collectors. Collectors of memories, moments and feelings. And after a while, our collections begin to define us.
Packing is a selection process
What packing reveals is how important these memories are.
If you think about the typical move, it would be easier to sell everything and start over once you’ve arrived at your new home.
But not really.
Because we’d have to part with our stuff.
Why do we keep things, after all? Isn’t it because they’re meaningful? They remind us of a happy day or a beloved relative. All the stuff cluttering our lives represents the special moments, who we are and where we come from. Leaving it behind is like a bad break-up with ourselves.
So we’ll pull something out of the attic that we didn’t even remember we had. Then we’ll struggle over whether we should get rid of it. In reality, we’ve been living without it. But deciding is hard.
It’s too final. It forces us to make a judgment, to declare that this item is worthy and that one unimportant.
That’s why it’s hard. When it comes to our possessions, we aren’t judging the item itself. We’re judging the memory associated with it.
Nevertheless, you can’t take everything with you. There isn’t room. It’s costs money to move trinkets that you don’t need. And let’s face it, there’s no point in moving something from this attic to that one just because it hurts to get rid of it.
It’s just that we get so caught up in the details of each possession that we forget the important thing. And that is, we can’t take it all.
The best results require a judgment call
It’s the same with marketing.
Well-integrated, high-powered marketing can involve so many media, messages and markets, it’s easy to get lost in the details or caught up in the big picture. It can be challenging to keep a high-level overview of your marketing strategy while still attending to the details of each individual project.
As marketers, we make hard decisions every time we craft a marketing promotion. We have to select the specific target, the one action we want them to take, and the one message that will make them do it.
Too often, we don’t pack a promotion properly. Rather than taking the time to select one finely targeted audience and speak directly to their needs, we try to make one message speak to every niche we serve.
We try to talk to everyone, and we end up talking to no one.
When marketing, it’s okay to leave things out. You have my permission (my recommendation) to remove messages that don’t connect with our target audience. Some pitches and promotions are less valuable. It’s okay to replace them with new messages.
It’s important to judge critically. Especially in marketing. Because our job is to connect and convert. If we aren’t selective, we’ll sell ourselves and our stakeholders short.
photo credit: quinn.anya
