David Meerman Scott recently shared a smart insight: the marketing 100 is now the marketing 10,000:
From one hundred things a year to ten thousand. Marketing has fundamentally shifted. Rather than doing a hundred really big projects, today’s marketers need to do tens of thousands of tiny things each year to be successful. It’s not about the campaign, it’s about engagement.
In a world with infinite choice where people’s attention continues to shift to stream-based platforms on web and micro interactions on mobile, this makes sense. You need to show up and show up consistently. David’s thoughts also sync well with a previous post we shared on why inch-by-inch now destroys ‘the big idea.’
An empowered team who isn’t restrained by overthinking, overburdened with meetings, or always looking back with superfluous internal reporting will run circles around a larger team that has created artificial barriers due to market dominance or fear of change.
With that said, it isn’t just about doing more and using data to try things and iterate. This actually isn’t enough. I think it points to another skill your team needs beyond agility: with 10,000 things to do in a year the ability to prioritize is key. As more channels, paths and ideas to get creative and delight your customers present themselves, it all comes down to knowing what to do first and what to work on later. Engaging in real-time might make sense right now. It might not.
Prioritization is the overlooked skill of the digital age and should be a key tentant of modern marketing professionals. I think this is the type of thing that you can teach to some extent, but likely comes down to experience on your own projects. All the more reason to create a sandbox project if you don’t yet have one.