Mar. 27, 2009 at 3:25pm

March Madness, marketing and more

Posted by Guest Blogger in Planning and Strategy
No comments

March Madness is upon us – and even if you’re not a sports fan, you’re probably vaguely aware that something significant is happening in the world of college basketball.

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament  is in full swing as I write this, with only 16 teams out of 64 still standing, hoping their national title dreams will come true.

Some people spend hours analyzing team statistics and listening to the experts. Some of us look at win-loss records, margins of victory, individual scoring statistics, size of the players, etc. But there are other considerations. Where will the game be played? Is a player injured? Is this team on a “hot” streak? Which team has more tournament experience?

Chances are you use a similar approach when making marketing decisions for your organization. It’s likely you’ve invested in research data to guide your initiatives. You conducted interviews or surveys, or facilitated focus groups.

But as we learn every year during the tournament, predictions that look good on paper don’t always pan out. The only sure bet? There will be surprises.

Why? Because some things can’t be measured with statistical tools or research methods. Perhaps the research method employed wasn’t well-suited for the project. Perhaps critical information is missed, incorrectly analyzed or clouded by intangible or external factors. An unexpected development might make your extensive research data instantly irrelevant.

Basketball fans across the country watched President Obama make his predictions on television. Like the rest of us, he had his reasons for choosing this team or that team. Like the rest of us, he’s missed a few so far.

So does this mean you should scrap your surveys? Forget your focus groups? Not at all! However, we can all benefit from a few lessons learned from March Madness. As you make decisions and design your research approach, be diligent about backing your research methods with the right rationale – and know when to trust your instincts. Bear in mind:

Passion matters. When only 40 minutes stand between your team advancing or going home, playing with passion and emotion can fuel enough adrenaline to jump higher than the 7-footer on the other team. Passion engages, inspires and motivates. Whether you’re talking to employees, physicians, or patients, passion brings you one step closer to developing messages that will resonate.

Focus on the task at hand. Every year at least one heavily favored team will lose to a scrappy team that comes seemingly out of nowhere. More often than not, the reason is because the “big guys” are too busy looking ahead to the next opponent instead of focusing on today’s game. Keep an eye on your organization’s goals (the big prize), but don’t forget about the smaller, scrappier competitors all around you. Balance what your research and your marketing plans advise you to do with the task at hand and the competitive environment you face every day.

Take some risks. Even the best players miss a few shots, make bad passes or foul out of the game. Better to take risks than be too tentative. Just like the best teams in the tournament, some of the best health care organizations are the ones that experiment and innovate. A few examples: The amazing new Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital and Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital’s cancer center, North Star Lodge.

While it’s smart to listen to your stakeholders, understand that sometimes they don’t know exactly what they want or need (see the book Blue Ocean Strategy for more on this concept).

Use information that’s freely available to you. Each year when I fill out my tournament brackets, I pull information from a few different places. I read what the analysts say, I look at what the computers predict, I talk to my sports-minded friends and see which teams are playing close to home. Then, more often than not, I just go with my gut.

Lori Briggs is an advisor at JayRay Ads & PR

Comments (0)

Add your comment below