The Right Marketing Mix is Just Spinning a UDAT

 

Forget about just selling the right blend of marketing media.

Marketers talk about the marketing mix.

What do they mean by that? They mean the right blend of ingredients from these media & methods:

• SEO
• Blogging
• Podcasts
• Influencers
• Web PR
  
• Video
• Website Content
• Email
  

That's the UDAT, which I'll explain in a bit.

Digital Agencies and their Uniform Toolkit

 

It's is the same basic toolkit of nearly every digital agency under the sun. If you are pitching an agency to a suit and you think you are offering them something new with your different-colored, shiny, polished spin on the UDAT, you're wrong.

The Same Old Toolkit

When the thick plan thunks on the table and their eyes glaze over to a monotone "we'll look at it", you know you've been filed in the same mental folder as all the other digital agency copycat UDAT sellers. You want to just compete on price? Keep on doing that.

Or maybe you play golf with the CEO and it's a relationship deal he can afford because he's in a fat margin business with no real competition. If that's the deal, skip to step 4. Otherwise, you have to compete on value and impact like the rest of us, so keep reading.

Look, I don't want to get in an argument about Woody Allen marrying an adopted daughter or anything- I'm not defending the guy. 

But he made a good point about blind spots in the movie Small Time Crooks.

He sets up a cover business of selling his wife's cookies as a front for a bank heist. Well, guess what: while they are trying to make their way to the bank underground and nearly drowning from hitting a water line, there's a line building that ends up a mile long out the door for the cookies. 

They aren't going to make this bank deal work. But the cookies, that could be another story. But they hardly notice how the cookies sales are taking off. They are too busy with their blinders on trying to figure out how to tunnel under this bank.

They have a big-ass blind spot.

Oh, yeah, what does UDAT mean? It's that list I made above, plus or minus two.

UDAT is pronounced like it's spelled. 

You Dat. 

Like, (New York Accent) "Hey, You-  Dat new spin on the same old set of tools isn't dat different from anyone else. You're missing the point."

UDAT = Uniform Digital Agency Toolkit

Trying to pitch how your mix of the Uniform Digital Agency Toolkit (UDAT) is the best is like Woody and his buddies trying to figure out which drill bit is going to cut through the wall the best while they forget they have a million customers trying to buy cookies.

Another train car of the UDAT- but it's the cargo that counts.

 

Instead of selling your spin on the UDAT, you need to help the customer construct clear thought leadership so all these various train cars of the UDAT are carrying a distinctive cargo - a solid message that leads market thinking - and that is how they stand out.

There's a way to do that.  

So quit trying new paint jobs on the various train cars that carry the cargo to the minds of the potential customers and start thinking about the cargo itself. That's what people are really buying. It isn't so much about how you are carrying it to them, so long as you get it to them, it's about the message they are carrying.

We've all got basically the same train cars, it's what you put in them. 

Don't get me wrong, getting the marketing mix right is important. It just isn't nearly enough. Your agency won't stand out that way. And your client company won't stand out if that's your main focus. Everybody else is clogging up those same channels with repetition. A new message that moves people to a new perspective, like how a train carries cargo to a new place, is needed.

Let's talk more about blind spots. This study found 58% of B2B decision makers said they chose businesses off of their thought leadership. B2B sellers, though? Only 26% said thought leadership had something to do with it.

That's a big, looming, long-shadow-casting, humming, stinkin' blind spot. I call it an opportunity for the smart.

That's why I see angles like Corporate Thought Leadership Consulting Services taking a bigger chunk of marketing from the UDAT sellers in the coming years. 

Get on the right train.

I made a list of best Thought Leadership Podcasts a few posts back if you need some brainfood.