Every sports team – whether professional or amateur or, even, on the playground or in your own backyard – starts each game with a plan.

It’s the same with marketing plans. We begin each year with a framework based upon a progressive hierarchy of Objectives, Strategies and Tactics designed to achieve business goals – typically revenue-based – and predicated upon an understanding of current and near-term market conditions.

(Check out our post on the 9 Characteristics of a Successful Marketing Plan)

But, as Mike Tyson once famously observed, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” And, boy, did 2020 punch us in the mouth.

Great teams and great leaders make in-game adjustments. The most significant and most obvious is the halftime adjustment.

In sports, Don Shula and Joe Gibbs – for those of a certain generation – are often lauded as masters of making halftime adjustments. Contemporary coaches Bill Belichick and Nick Saban are similarly singled out as brilliant architects of halftime adjustments. Consider the Patriots’ second half comeback against the Falcons to win Super Bowl LI. Or Alabama pulling Jalen Hurts at halftime for Tua Tagovailoa to rally past Georgia in the 2017 College Football Playoff championship game.

(Not surprisingly, Belichick and Saban have a close relationship examined in the HBO documentary The Art of Coaching)

Gary Vaynerchuk is a big proponent of halftime adjustments, writing in #AskGaryVee, “I am a halftime adjustments head coach. If I’m down 23–21 at the end of the second quarter, I’ve got fifteen minutes of halftime to figure out how to turn things around for my team, using what I’ve learned, tracking the patterns, and adapting in the moment.”

It’s now July and it’s halftime for corporate marketing departments and their leaders. This is when marketing leaders are going to either earn their paychecks or potentially sign their walking papers.

What Not to Do

Don’t stop marketing.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what many organizations – even the really savvy ones – have done or are doing.

Back in March, we counseled, “Akin to Contrarian Investing (Buy when there’s blood in the streets, even if the blood is your own), companies should keep marketing during these difficult markets. Further, they should insist on evolving the role and expectations of marketing.”

Arik Diamant at Secret Sauce echoed our pro-marketing outlook in a thought-provoking video in which he boldly shared why – in current coronavirus market conditions – marketing is the new sales and implored marketing organizations to step up their game.

Even John Sculley recently advised companies not to go dark but, rather, double-down, adding, “Great brands… will be looked upon as ones that have really helped us through the crisis” and “Even if you are a small company at a disadvantage, if you change the ground rules, you can have a huge impact.”

What You Absolutely Should Do

Focus on building mindshare.

Mindshare is what buyers and influencers perceive and believe about your brand. And when your company has mindshare, the probability of getting short-listed and winning business significantly increases.

(Check out our post why mindshare is more desirable than awareness)

Admittedly, it’s not easy to build mindshare. And many marketers mistakenly begin with tactics rather than what’s really at the core of mindshare.

Remember “the Authentic Swing” speech from The Legend of Bagger Vance? It is a metaphor for the Authentic Self. According to Steven Pressfield, the author of the novel which was adapted into the movie, “Each of us has one, and only one, swing/self that is ‘authentic’ to us.”

It’s the same for corporate brands. Brands need to be authentic. Because buyers buy from those they know, like and trust.

In This Is Marketing: You Can’t Be Seen Until You Learn to See, Seth Godin observes, “Trust is as scarce as attention.”

Expanding upon this, David Yovanno writes in Forbes, “Trust is a valuable commodity – hard to build with customers and all too often easy to lose,” adding, “Trust (is earned) through authenticity.”

Mindshare won’t be achieved through “tactical flailing” such as pivoting to virtual events and webinars because there’re no live trade shows or by posting a bunch of photos on LinkedIn of your team’s Zoom happy hour.

(For more about the future of trades shows, check out our post as well as this well-researched and well-argued article by Ern Worthman in AGL Magazine)

Instead, you’ve got to be authentic. You’ve got to stand for something. You’ve got to say something – whether everybody agrees with it or not. You’ve got to help buyers solve their problems. And you’ve got to stop shilling and, instead, educate.

Then, and only then, can you begin to figure out what tactics and marketing methods to use.

More to Come

In the coming weeks and months, this blog will continue to discuss and debate ideas, examples and best practices of marketing to address the requirements of companies seeking the to grow share as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Please join the conversation and share with your colleagues.

Meanwhile, should you need help, Mindshare Advisors is a specialized consultancy focused on helping high-potential organizations architect and execute go-to-market strategy, launch, thought leadership, and branding to capture marketshare by winning mindshare.

Contact us at info(at)mindshareadvisors.com