The success of samurai swords comes from a rigid flexibility. There's an amazing book about it called The Craft of the Japanese Sword by Leon Kapp and his wife Hiroko Kapp. The book is a study of making Samurai swords generally through the lens of following the Japanese swordsmith, Yoshindo Yoshihara. It is an art form of headache-inducing proportions.
I like working that book into conversations when I can. It’s basically a study into how much work and passion goes into making something beautiful.
Like any successful samurai sword, a successful plan needs a degree of rigid flexibility. A strategy for your marketing needs a purposeful shape, so you can wield it with strong intent. And it needs to be flexible, so that it can with stand sudden turns of fate.
It’s tempting to attack your marketing without a plan, and a written one at that.Written is good, because then you’ve got a record of what you want to do.
A written plan for your marketing strategy is much more likely to succeed.It’s too big a subject to go into exhaustively in one blog.
You can start out right with these four things.
Delegate. If you’re anything like me, marketing will bring the micromanagement instincts out of you.If your company had a face, your marketing would wear that face. We want our business to put on a good face.If we try to do all our own marketing and run our business, both are likely to slip. Find people who understand what you’re trying to do, and get them on the same page with you. Then give them work!
Follow brand guidelines. Your brand is the psyche of your business culture.Your tribe’s loyalty will depend on your ability to represent your brand with success. Figuring out your brand is a whole other thing, and we can help you with that as well. Once you have it figured out, ensure that your whole marketing team follows that guideline.
Look beyond your team to source content. Your business operates in a big playground. Your tribe likes things from that playground other than you—and, odds are, you do too.It’s good sense to share content from elsewhere in the market playground as part of your marketing strategy. Doing so demonstrates your awareness of the rest of the playground, and it helps your tribe build associations between you and the rest of the playground. Give yourself context.
Build an editorial calendar. Strategy is all the infrastructure you put in place.It’s your plan.It’s your tools and apps. It’s your people and how you get them there.And it’s driven by your goals and the dates you want to achieve them. Start building your calendar now. Fill it with the dates of your goals, then start filling in content ideas based on building towards those goals. You will probably need more time than you expect
