Knowing When to Change Communication Channels
Apr 13th, 2010 by David Svet
whippoorwill I was on a Boy Scout camping trip and had just gone to bed. The quiet stillness was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a whippoorwill overhead. What began as a charming trill welcoming me to the great outdoors soon degenerated into a grating annoyance. This bird would not shut up. It went on and on all night long. I threw sticks and rocks to no avail. I stuck my head under my pillow. They’re very loud. I couldn’t leave or move my tent without disturbing the other campers. He just howled on and on. Maybe he was trying to scare us away? Maybe he was looking for a mate? If so, that’s the loneliest bird on the planet. In any event, whatever he wanted didn’t happen. He relentlessly stayed in the same spot making the same call all night long and had nothing to show for it in the morning.
It’s amazing to me to see this same kind of behavior on a regular basis at work — companies executing marketing tactics because that’s the way they’ve always done it. They don’t know if they are getting results, but they keep pouring money on it. Why? I don’t know. Markets change. Communication channels change. We need to change with them. We’re lucky. We have a vast range of communications capabilities and can track results. If you’re not regularly testing new approaches as well as tracking and testing your tried and true efforts you are probably missing out on a lot of opportunities. Investing in something that doesn’t deliver a return while missing out on an investment that could deliver a return is bad business. Unlike my good friend, Mr. Whippoorwill, we have the tools to know when to cut our losses and change channels. But it’s up to us to use them.
