Pipped at the post?

You know what it’s like, when that great idea you have been working on for months to put your brand right at the forefront of your sector is suddenly pipped - one of your competitors beats you to it! Your killer marketing idea is rolled out worldwide by somebody else while your people still have it somewhere in their in-trays.

What happened? Well, from my experience, clients are still thinking of web marketing in traditional terms. They look at activities as projects, where in fact they are processes. I see people coming up with great concepts, then spending months developing, changing, amending and micro managing.  They are reluctant to put their idea into action until every ‘t’ is crossed and ‘i’ dotted.  While over the other side of town, competitor ‘x’ came up with the same idea months later but is happy to go live early and allow the idea to develop on-line - they recognize that it is a process.

Key to winning the race, especially where social internet is involved, is being prepared to relax control - a problem many companies have.  But to be engaged with your audience means relinquishing a measure of control.  Stop trying to micro-manage activities before they go live. The web is dynamic - you will have to amend and react to changes anyway, so you might as well go live sooner rather than later and then edit, build and develop in real time.

Don’t think of internet projects in the same way as you would think of print jobs.  You don’t have to have every detail completed before going to press. In fact, regular updating keeps the process alive and vital.  Visitors (and search engines) like to see change and development.

Relax and enjoy the process - forget the paranoia and get that great idea online.