Have you ever seen a really great idea fall flat inexplicably? It’s especially frustrating when the idea has so much potential and meets a clear need. It’s always a little perplexing when you build consensus and enthusiasm for a project, procure the necessary commitment of time and resources, actually pull it off… and then it doesn’t make a difference. You end up with a nice shiny end product and a lot of excited people in-house, but it doesn’t catch on and it doesn’t go anywhere and most importantly, it doesn’t generate any new business.
Unfortunately there is no shortage of ideas that should have worked but somehow didn’t. Often the breakdown is in a failure to FINISH thinking the idea through to the end: How will you distribute it? In other words, it’s not enough to have a great idea, you simultaneously also have to consider the distribution mechanism. How you’ll get the idea out has to be part of the full idea.
Consider a few examples:
We’ve all done swag or some other kind of marketing giveaway. Somehow you want to flood the area with your logo. A t-shirt is an easy idea, but why would someone wear a t-shirt? They have a million already. Consider the infamous 5K or fun-run t-shirt, how many do you have buried in your drawer? Instead, what about a fun-run where you’re encouraged to wear the t-shirt at the run?! Or even better, what about a much more useful and versatile shirt, like a long-sleeved tee? This would be slightly more expensive, but so much more useable.
We’ve also all printed a ton of promotional paper. Maybe it has really great and useful content, but how will you give it out? The expo or trade show handout is easy to give away but it has limited utility because it’s so far removed from the context. How can you give it out in a way that immediately indicates its use or home? Start by delivering it in a context where it can immediately be placed, such as bookmarks in a library or bookstore, or door hangers in a res hall or apartment setting. Mail it to your targets in such a fashion that it easily goes straight to the family fridge or corkboard instead of the trash. Give away a poster with clear indications about where to hang it; or a sticker that is begging to be applied immediately to a water bottle or book or instrument case; or a card that goes instinctively into a wallet or purse.
Many of our ideas are concepts or simply messages, distributed maybe via an email campaign. This might be the easiest example of all because we’re already accustomed to the concept of building drip campaigns and journeys. However, rather than just a routinized delivery schedule, consider when you want your customers to get it and why you want them to get it in that exact moment because then they will naturally want to open it. Usually we try to approach this in terms of the right catchy email subject, but potentially we can be much more effective if we’re willing to finish the job of thinking through the delivery mechanism.
So don’t settle for an amazing idea. They’re hard enough to come by as it is! Think it through all the way to distribution. Otherwise it will only ever be an amazing idea, and it will never actually work.