Marketers have very different personalities from their colleagues in the financial and accounting professions. They tend to be vibrant, inventive, whimsical, ambitious, and impatient. While they bring a lot of creativity to their organization, they also have a tendency to adapt some bad habits as well. One of the issues that marketers need to get over is the “shiny market syndrome.”
The shiny market syndrome is if phenomenon when people get overly preoccupied with the newest and most exciting developments, without regard for their long-term effectiveness. This tendency is all too common in the field of marketing. Marketers often get distracted by new opportunities to reach customers. This is one mistake that someone with a major in marketing will be taught to avoid.
This problem can manifest in any form of marketing. However, it is especially common in the digital marketing profession, because that is the area where there is the most innovation and new opportunities due to advances in technology. Nevertheless, new opportunities still sometimes present themselves in direct mail and network marketing as well, so marketers should be aware of the fallacies they may fall victim to.
They certainly shouldn’t turn their back on legitimate marketing opportunities. However, they need to be wary of assuming that new channels and strategies are necessarily better. Here are a couple of reasons that the shiny object syndrome can lead them astray.
New Marketing Opportunities Might Not Be Proven Yet
When new marketing outlets surface, people often make very bold predictions about their long-term potential. Google Plus is a prime example.
When Google Plus was first introduced back in 2011, many marketers believed that it was going to be the next Facebook. They immediately started diverting a lot of their marketing resources to the new social media platform. A few months after Google Plus was launched, growth stalled and some of the more informed members of the marketing community speculated that its demise was imminent.
Despite its sluggish growth, lots of marketers were still enamored by the new social network. They were sure that traffic would pick up in the future. After all, it was a new social media platform, so that meant it had to be the wave of the future!
Needless to say, Google Plus never took off. Google officially discontinued the platform this year. Too many marketers wasted a lot of money on a platform that would never be worth their effort, simply because it was new.
New Channels Sometimes Need Time to Offer a Decent ROI
Although many new marketing channels and strategies will never be worth the investment, others certainly will. However, that does not mean that they will be worth the time and energy right away. Marketing professionals could waste a lot of money on them while waiting for the platform to be a viable channel.
Pinterest is a good example. When the popular image sharing platform was first launched, it had a smaller user base. Marketers that dedicated a lot of time and energy to Pinterest marketing in the early months might not have seen a massive pay off. It might have been a good use of time for marketers in certain verticals, such as food preparation and women’s accessories. However, other industries that rely heavily on Pinterest today would not have found it worthwhile in those early months.
New marketing strategies can pull resources away from existing efforts. Even if a new marketing strategy has the potential to be a good investment, it might not be worth pulling back on other proven strategies.
One leading marketing expert recently sent out an email newsletter about the benefits of push marketing. Push marketing could indeed be a great strategy. However, somebody might be getting a better return on their marketing dollars with Facebook at the moment. If they have 300% ROI on their Facebook strategy, the opportunity cost of investing in push marketing would be that they wouldn’t be able to grow their revenue with Facebook marketing as quickly.
Marketers Should Be Sensible About Adapting New Strategies
The marketing profession is changing all the time. New strategies are being introduced, which often leads marketers down different paths. These new strategies can be invaluable, but they can also be a waste of time and resources. Marketing professionals need to look at the long-term payoff of these strategies and invest in them accordingly.
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