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Think Slinky

Is marketing child’s play? Of course not, but thinking of marketing as an ongoing, evolving process (think: Slinky) instead of a closed-loop can improve your outcomes. So says Andy Wright, EVP of sales and marketing services for Carlson Marketing Worldwide, who recently met with our editorial team. Andy made the point that marketers shouldn’t think in terms of a closed-loop cycle, but should think of marketing as more like a continuous wind of a Slinky: You test a program or product, you gather feedback and other results, you take that information back to the organization and act on it -- which, if done correctly, will bring you up to the next level (i.e., better results the next time and the next and the next). What caught my attention was how well this goes hand-in-hand with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers’ idea of the learning relationship, in which you take what you’ve learned about the customer and use it to improve the customer experience, as well as to learn more about the customer -- creating a continuous, evolving loop that entangles customer and company.