What Can Marketers Learn from Sherlock Holmes?
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly, one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.”
This is one of favorite lines from one of my favorite literary characters: Sherlock Holmes.
And so it is with marketing strategy.
Too often, I see brands and marketers skip the data-gathering phase and jump right to the execution phase.
Later, when the results disappoint, they wonder what went wrong.
What if you could pre-engineer your campaign to achieve optimal results—before applying various tactics on hope and a hunch?
That’s what research, planning and strategy will do: reverse-engineer a successful path forward by fully understanding what you need to achieve, with whom, and how they will respond to your efforts.
Because there are so many available marketing channels at our disposal these days, it can be tempting to dive right in and just spray-and-pray until you find something that works.
But that is a capital mistake. For when you do, you begin to twist strategy to suit tactics, instead of tactics to suit strategy.