Marketing in a Snowstorm: How Dealing with Snow and Managing Marketing are Analogous

I was listening to the news while getting dressed for work yesterday and heard predictions for more snow storms. My second thought (after “More snow! Just great!”) was that the weather is behaving a lot like my work right now, throwing me a little more to deal with when I thought I had quite enough.

We have an annual calendar for the Marketing Department at Affinity Express because there are standard things we have to do each week, month, quarter and year. For example, we always try to update and refresh all our collateral in January and early February to properly equip our Sales Team. We also outline major objectives and initiatives to conquer during our annual strategy planning, such as building and going live with our new corporate website (any minute now!) and developing materials to show off our new state-of-the-art production facility in India.

But like the weather, we know there will also be surprises and projects we can’t control—it is just a matter of how much warning we will get. This first quarter of 2011 is turning out a little like that for us in Marketing. We have several “freak storms” to contend with on top of our regular responsibilities and proactive plans. A couple of important RFP opportunities came up this week. Plus, I was notified of an extra trade show we’ll attend later this month, where we will promote a new service (a double whammy of trade show planning and new product development). That means moving up deadlines, developing messaging and materials, researching the market and competition and coordinating logistics, in addition to everything else that already was on the to-do list.

I have a simple and straightforward approach to surviving—and succeeding—that applies to marketing as well as it does an impending blizzard.