You may have seen the famous FTSE100 graph that plots the performance of one of the world’s key financial indicators over the last decade. It’s a fascinating view of economic turbulence, highlighting the crests and troughs of the performances of the most influential businesses in the UK.
At any one moment the graph shows a bear market and the collective challenges as these businesses fight back with tactical performance to steady their ships. At another moment as confidence rises on the performance of just one or two, the bullish traders become more active and the graph moves in a northerly direction.
Often when you look at the graph from a shorter time perspective, maybe a month or week or even a single day, the fluctuations give a less accurate view of the overall trend as the line spikes and dips dramatically and in many ways this can feel like the ups and downs of running a marketing communications project or campaign.
When a marketer plans their best work with good intention they set an ultimate target and key milestones en route. The course is set and they begin to roll out the delivery of the project. As they progress there will be highs and lows. Click through rates over-perform, leads come through at a higher than expected rate, media coverage paints a positive picture and the highs feel great. Elements of the campaign or project fail to work, budget is re-allocated by the business, customer complaints increase or you fail to make the sales you forecast. This is the flip-side of the highs, and the lows can very often bring you down and make you view the overall picture through negatively skewed eyes.
The ebb and flow of a project or campaign is an inevitable consequence of any journey in marketing as much as it is in everyday life. The key things to remember are:
Set your ultimate goal and always keep your eye on the prize, no matter where you are in the project
Create SMART objectives through which you can monitor relevant performance
Accept that change is inevitable and that a new ultimate goal may actually be a stronger end point than the initial one
Remember that the trend in your marketing communications is always positive in the longer term, even if that day you are experiencing a temporary dip
By monitoring your projects in a FTSE100 graph manner you will see visually if the trend is ultimately a less favourable position and if that happens you can change course or terminate the project before wasting valuable resources
In marketing and in life, being present in the moment is vital to really experience that moment, but know how that moment contributes to a positive or negative trend and adjust your next moments accordingly.