In business, if you're not gaining ground, you're losing ground. Focusing on maintaining the status quo is a surefire way to get outmaneuvered by your competition and start losing market share. The defensive mindset is especially common in a fallow season, when cash-flow conservation becomes the priority over the long-term health and growth of the business. As digital marketing experts, we fairly regularly encounter a defensive mindset in discovery conversations with prospective clients.
What a defensive mindset looks like in digital marketing:
Hyper-focus on efficiency (metrics like cost-per-lead, or return on ad spend become the goal)
Prioritizing the easiest-to-track initiatives (paid search is always easier to track than a social media campaign, whether it's more effective at achieving your business goal or not)
Concern over the smallest lost ground from existing program (investing significant time clinging to things that worked in the past)
Reticence to test new networks or audiences
A defensive mindset can lead to stagnation, like squeezing a sponge for one last drop of water—there is a finite limit. To succeed in business, you need both a strong defense and an offense. Focusing solely on minimizing losses limits potential. To truly win, you need an additive strategy that pushes you to go after what’s still out there, not just protect what you have.
What an additive strategy looks like in digital marketing:
Goals expressed as profitable growth, instead of maintenance goals expressed as efficiency metrics
Out of channel strategy to measure incremental gains of harder-to-track initiatives
Prioritizing based on net impact to volume (which may mean losing some ground in one market to gain more in a bigger market)
Continuous testing of new opportunities
A defensive strategy feels safe, but if you focus on not losing, rather than on winning, you might view a nil-nil draw as success. So how do you make the switch to an additive mindset?
Dare to dream. Consider what you want for yourself, your team, your customers. Assume that's all possible, and then map out: what does the business need to achieve to get there?
While you're at it, dream big. Use BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals) to challenge yourself and your team to think outside the box to solve for growth that may not even feel possible.
Surround yourself with growth-oriented partners. If you, your team, or your vendors struggle with this additive approach to digital marketing, consider bringing in a partner who specializes in it to help put you back on offense.
A good defensive strategy is critical to your game, but you'll only win if you have a plan to get to the goal.