Towing the car with horses lets you look forward,
but it ain't a pretty sight!

“Not being willing to evaluate new marketing approaches is like trying to drive by looking through the rear view mirror.”
– Seth Godin, (famous marketing guru), Purple Cow

This statement reminds me of the story my grandpa used to tell me. There’s quite a lengthy stretch of highway up a rather steep mountain pass between the Salt Lake Valley and routes eastward, including Park City. That’s the home of the Sundance Film Festival as well as many venues during the 2002 Winter Olympics. I-80 now runs through that pass but back then, as we cruised up the extensive slope in his V8 powered Rambler we passed old faded signs advertising the availability of water. He’d tell us how in the days of the Model-T and other automobiles woefully underpowered for such a vertical climb, they would overheat as they tried to negotiate the pass. Grandpa told us how they often would put the car in reverse and back up the hill since reverse was the lowest gear of the car and could make the climb easier with less overheating, not to mention allowing more fuel to reach the carburetor. Cars those days also had gravity fed fuel tanks and steep slopes tended to have gravity pulling the gas in the wrong direction. Of course, a pair of horses could tow you and still let you look forward. However, the rears of a double dose of yesterday’s technology ain’t always such a pretty sight!

I thought about how difficult it would be to back up your car for miles on end and that it is that difficulty Seth is trying to convey in his analogy about the rear view mirror. But I was wrong. Even though they were driving backwards, at least those navigating the steep hills were looking in the direction of their goal – the top of the pass. The available tools for climbing (the Model-T  era cars) were the limiting factors. Rather, Seth is talking about business owners who aren’t even looking in the right direction. They are looking at where they have been while trying to move forward. They are caught up in the past, clinging to those ‘traditional’ marketing tools or approaches that once worked, but which not only have less reach today, but are still consistently declining in effectiveness. They don’t see the upcoming realities of the tools of online marketing; the powers of search to not only find new customers, but to understand what your customers want and to create products to meet their needs. Nor do they grasp the potential in the new levels of engagement, credibility and trust made possible by video, mobile and social media marketing that can lead to your lowest cost per customer found.

John Wanamaker, the father of advertising and a pioneer in marketing said “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” Those driving while looking in their rear view mirror still don’t understand how that doesn’t have to be anymore! You can measure your results today like never before. In upcoming blogs, we’ll explore the high impact and low-cost ways to market your business from a Guerrilla Marketer’s perspective. We’ll focus on the courage to invest in marketing during an economic downturn and the big wins the courage to act can bring your business. We’ll learn to use the rear view mirror for it’s real purpose: to motivate us as a quick glance now and then allows us to see our competition.