In Josh Linkner’s recent “Next Play” blog post, Duke University basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski explains his amazingly-successful “next play” credo:
“In basketball and in life, I have always maintained the philosophy of ‘next play.’ Essentially, what it means is that what you have just done is not nearly as important as what you are doing right now. The ‘next play’ philosophy emphasizes the fact that the most important play of the game or life moment on which you should always focus is the next one. It is not about the turnover I committed last time down the court, it’s not even about the three-pointer I hit to tie the game, it is about what’s next.”
Coach Krzyzewski’s winning game plan cranked TFG’s collective mental gears into “Jack Handey” mode. You know, deeeeeeep thoughts. And that sparked questions among our team about how we can put it into practical action and adopt our own next play culture.
It’s all about forward momentum and pivoting with the ball.
Borrowing from Coach K’s basketball strategy, successful marketing is really a series of next play actions – and the unwavering commitment to constantly move forward or pivot to another vantage point.
So here’s one example of The Fowler Group’s next play tactic. Since our agency website re-design, we’ve been posting B2B-focused content discussing branding, marketing, copywriting, website redesign and development. Our approach is fire, reload, fire, reload. Rinse and repeat. We fire fresh content, but don’t hang around waiting for the approval/disapproval and response of that one move. Nope, once we fire it’s on to the next play. Which, to date, has been more new content. That’s a good thing. Steady content. Steady marketing.
It’s time to push ourselves to the next level of next play marketing: the pivot.
Our next move is developing an email campaign series that’s a bit narrower in scope. So we still have one foot firmly in the content marketing realm – creating tasty tips, tricks and advice ranging from direct mail campaigns to web design and SEO. The other foot, however, begins pivoting (as a next play) to create funneled, serial content to email to our subscribers. Yup…a good ol’ email campaign that’s chock full of meaningful content marketing. And while pivoting to implement this ongoing email series, we’re already focusing on creating badass TFG-branded giveaway goodies – postcards, posters, calendars and maybe even a Marilyn bobblehead doll (pimpin’ our logo, of course).
We’re also revisiting past work to see if we can (pivot again and) re-mix and re-purpose some of it: flesh out our portfolio timeline and demonstrate a more diverse scope of projects that we’ve produced. And because we have some really cool creations worth sharing. I mean, who wouldn’t appreciate a Thanksgiving turkey wrapped with a label featuring Tom Fowler saying, “The Fowler Group gives you the bird!” It’s a long story…
So what’s your company’s next play?
Do you have a solid marketing strategy in place? Does your team stay focused on the all-important next play pivot? If you need a nudge, some marketing motivation or a whole new game plan, give our coaches a shout. Our winning team of strategists, designers and developers are Red Bull-ed and rarin’ to go.
