Safe is Risky

The riskiest thing you can do is be safe. That’s a point made by Seth Godin in his TED Talk about how ideas spread. Over and over he makes the point about how doing remarkable things captured our attention. Doing safe things did not.

Year after year we work with companies to help their marketing plans capture the attention of their markets and convert awareness into adoption faster. It’s not necessarily safe. It is different, measureable and proven. I think about the innovation that’s happened in agriculture in recent years and wonder how these ideas started. How did we decide to use a toy to take pictures of our fields? Who thought that knowing what’s going on in every inch of your field would provide an advantage, bringing big data to agriculture?

These ideas are championed by innovators and early adopters and spread to the market.

Godin talks about the importance of finding the people who will want your product, rather than spraying your message to the masses. Equally, it’s important to make the whole product experience about the customer.

How have you done that with your marketing strategy? How have you leveraged innovators to propel your message forward?

Otaku is a Japanese term for people with obsessive interests. How do you find those who feel that way – obsessed – about your product? And how do you engage them in a way that they help you spread the message using their expertise, experience and passion?

Your safe marketing plan may not include a way to accomplish this. But you should be thinking about how to get this done.