Good Marketing Isn't Free

Quick show of hands: how many of you have Word on your computer?

Great, that's just about everyone (if you didn't raise your hand, check out Google Docs).

How many of you used that tool to write an amazing novel?

I don't see many hands.

OK, how many of you wrote your memoirs? Family history? A decent article?

I see a few more, but not many. Why didn't you? Because the tool doesn't make the talent.

Four years ago I did a video about my daughter's adoption. After this 9 minute video that took me hours to produce, distilling 3 hours of video, re-cutting music, selecting other Chinese music and fretting over the order of certain sequences given the audience, my cousin said to me "Oh, so you just need to choose the right music."

Um... right. That and get a graduate degree then spend a decade producing TV news. But sure, just pick the right music and you're on your way.

I thought about this after reading George Colony's recent post referencing a Forrester report noting how marketing budgets are dropping. I've seen the impact of that myself.

A lot of CMOs and Marketing VPs see the free tools such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and all those other great social media buzzwords and figure "great, we can do this ourselves!" And yes, some can. But in reality, to handle these tools effectively you need someone who can help you tell your story.

Of course, you can always go and work on that novel.