1) Put your best foot forward. Did Aguilera ever have a bigger single audience than she did on Super Bowl Sunday? Not a chance. And yet, she wasn’t prepared to deliver her best on that high-profile stage.
Your marketing email or webinar may have only a tiny fraction of a Super Bowl audience, but you still need to prepare it as if the world is going to see it, because it’s YOUR world – your customers and prospects – that will be seeing it.
2) Keep your eye on the ball. By turning the anthem into a pop song, Christina Aguilera missed the point. Rather than trying to convey the meaning and feeling of the lyrics to an entire nation struggling through war and a punishing economy, she chose to “make it her own” by twisting and distorting the emotional intent. Because she focused on pulling off dazzling vocal runs rather than communicating authentic emotion, she failed. And not just because she forgot the words.
Is your marketing missing the point? For instance, are you continually trying to win more and more new customers while you under-serve or ignore your current customers? Or are you substituting omnipresence or technological flash for a meaningful message that connects with the right people in the right places?
Pushing the envelope creatively is almost always risky, and the rewards can be tremendous, but in this noisy world, sometimes the most effective approach is one that is simplybeautiful.
