When I was in college (eons ago), I had a vision of my glamorous marketing career. I thought I would be selling business owners on cutting edge concepts and ideas. If the ideas were good enough, I thought, they would have no problem handing their marketing budget over to me. Here’s an example:

Me: “…so that’s basically my insanely brilliant marketing idea.”
Business Owner: “By George! You’re brilliant, Jay. Here’s one million dollars. Let’s make this happen! Also, take all the time you need. There’s no rush.”
Me: “That sounds lovely.”

The above example is what I thought would happen. Unfortunately,  business owners have more to worry about than whether something “looks pretty”. In fact, business owners typically care less about a creative concept, and more about measurable results.

At Roundpeg, as we work with small business owners the emphasis is always on the  potential results of a strategy first and the creative execution to support the strategy is secondary.  While a large corporation might be running five marketing campaigns at once, our clients typically run one, so our work has to be incredibly efficient and quantifiable. Personally, I like the accountability. It forces me to grow and improve every day.

What is the most important aspect of your company’s marketing? Do you value innovative concepts or quantifiable success to make marketing decisions?