Everything is Urgent

A wise man once said, "There are no emergencies in advertising." And it's true—it might feel extremely urgent, but no one is going to bleed out if the proof doesn't make it to the printer. You might be in big trouble with the boss, but you're not going to need defribillating on the office floor.

Feel better?

Good. Now we can start talking about the very real pressures of meeting everyone's expectations, hitting business milestones, and achieving marketing goals in a fast-paced market that doesn't always give a lot of grace for mistakes.

The truth is, when everything is urgent, then nothing gets the attention it deserves. That's when you know it's time to bring in the hired guns (hey, that's us!) to give your advertising efforts a strategy, to provide a framework for prioritizing your marketing goals, and for mapping your creative campaigns.

Why Everything Feels Urgent (and Why That Sucks)

We've all sat in those Monday morning meetings and gotten chewed out by C-suite leaders who see what the competitors are doing and are experiencing business-flavored FOMO. They're under pressure from stakeholders to deliver results, and they're reacting to competing priorities between owners, consumers, and influencers.

Sucks for them, but then they turn around and make it suck for you, too.

The problem with this chain reaction of suck-a-tude is that it creates a reactive, rather than a proactive environment. Reactive cultures are tough for a few reasons:

• It's hard to be reactive and strategic at the same time. Think about it, if you're pivoting as a reaction to every trend or competitor launch, you're never going to have the time or capacity to pursue your own goals in a thoughtful, meaningful way.
• It's hard to be reactive and creative at the same time. If you're only creating new campaigns, new products, or new initiatives in response to something your competitors are doing, then your unique thoughts and ideas get trampled.
• It's hard to be reactive and compassionate at the same time. Being reactive makes you prickly, and being prickly makes your team edgy. An edgy, unhappy team isn't going to create groundbreaking advertising for you, and they're not going to have a lot of sympathy for you either.

The truth is, consumer behaviors are changing fast, with new trends emerging in a matter of minutes and platforms evolving to keep up with demand at record-breaking speeds. You do have to be nimble in order to be successful, but that agility has to exist within the framework of your company's goals and plans.

What Are You Actually Trying to Achieve?

Balancing short-term performance with long-term success is challenging — people spend their entire careers perfecting the ratio between immediate conversions and lasting brand equity, actually.

The trick is that these two kinds of goals aren't competitors, but partners. They have to work together to make sure your bills get paid this month and you've got a pipeline to pay your bills this time next year.

Virtually every brand needs a mix of both performance and equity, but the priorities shift due to market conditions, brand history, consumer habits, and more. Here are some questions to ask yourself now, and at regular intervals throughout the year, to make sure your priorities are aligning with your reality:

• What is the customer's journey to conversion?
• What does success look like today?
• How does that differ from how success looks in 6 months?

Regular, minor course corrections are a more sustainable and proactive way to manage your company's shifting priorities than the Chicken Little approach to marketing.

A Prioritization Framework You Can Actually Use

If you're out there going "Sounds great, but how do I actually do that," then you're not alone. The best advice we can give you is call us. We do this all the time, we're not afraid of trends, shifts, and opinions, and we know how to optimize your short-term and long-term goals so that you're building brand equity while converting consumers.

Until then, here are three filters you can use to assess opportunities and prioritize initiatives.

• The Business Impact Filter

1. Does this initiative support our revenue goals?
2. Does this address a bottleneck in our funnel or a consumer pain point?
3. What is the potential ROI for this initiative?

🚩 Pro Tip: A project that feels important or urgent but lacks measurable business connections is probably not strategically aligned to your goals.

• The Resource Reality Filter

1. Can our business afford this initiative with current budget and team capacity?
2. Can the project be executed to our high standards in the time available?
3. Is there a hidden cost of doing the project poorly?

💡 Pro Tip: Sometimes "not now" or "not this time" is the most strategic answer.

• The Strategic Fit Filter

1. Does this initiative align with our brand positioning?
2. Will this still matter in 6-12 months?
3. Are we building on existing momentum or starting from scratch?

🧘 Pro Tip: Just because something is urgent to someone else, doesn't mean it has to be urgent to you and your team.

Once you've applied these filters, you should be able to make tough calls a lot more easily. Priorities start to look something like this:

• Do First: Projects that are high impact, feasible, and a strategic fit
• Plan For: High impact initiatives that need more resources or strategic development
• Do Smart: Quick wins that build momentum
• Say No (For Now): Low impact initiatives that don't pass the filters

It's Time for the Red Flags

Ready to pull the trigger on the next great thing? Hold it, cowboy. Make sure you're not ignoring these red flags:

• Your primary motivation for doing something is that "everyone else is doing it." If Coca Cola jumped off a bridge, would you jump too? Didn't think so.
• Your team is stressed out all the time. If due dates are getting lost, processes are getting ignored, and projects are only half-done, it may be time to chill tf out.
• You're measuring activity instead of outcomes. Sure, a zillion website visitors is great, but if they're not converting then you're not accomplishing your goals.
• Your positioning is inconsistent across channels. Strategic tone shifts are one thing, but brand positioning should be repeatable across platforms.

The truth is, an experience and intuitive marketing leader will probably sense it when these issues begin to arise — but that doesn't mean that it's possible to do anything about it on your own.

That's Where We Come In

Partnering with a creative agency is HUGE for businesses and brands that are struggling to prioritize initiatives, maximize trends, and stay on brand in the process. Due to the nature of our business, we have a different perspective on marketing trends than you do, and can identify patterns across industries and clients. That expertise helps inform strategies that don't rely on trend-chasing.

We also just have more capabilities than the average in-house marketing team. We can execute higher quality assets in less time because we're focused, dedicated partners who don't have to worry about meeting all the other responsibilities you have in your role. You go to the stakeholder meetings, we'll make the campaign collateral.

It'll take some honest, open conversations between us to get to a place of mutual understanding, but in the end, you'll wind up with a creative partner that wants the same things you do, and knows how to get you there.

It's OK to Focus

The truth is, being strategic means being selective. You can't please all the people, all the time, so the best thing to do is focus on doing the right things for your brand, and doing them extremely well.

This week, make a list of all the advertising initiatives on your plate right now, and take a few minutes to rate each one based on the filters we shared in this article. Clear priorities should start to emerge, which you should protect with ample resources and time.

After that, let's talk about a focused plan to help level up your advertising efforts and grow your business.