Do You Really Like It?

Welcome to The Beat by Rockstar CMO. I’m Ian Truscott, a CMO, trusted advisor, strategy consultant and Chief Bottle Washer at Rockstar CMO. In this newsletter, I’d like to share a mix of what’s caught my eye from our community, our podcast and our street knowledge blog.

Hello there!

Two things are driving the theme of this newsletter this week; firstly I seem to be listening to a lot of early 2000’s UK garage, I think because there is a TV ad using a track that has earwormed itself into my head and secondly I am writing an article for CMSWire about my latest theory on B2B marketing.

Let’s get the first out of the way. The track I suggest this week to get your marketing mojo working, which has certainly been working my mojo, is “Do You Really Like It” by DJ Pied Piper and Master of Ceremonies from 2001 (link below).

Do you really like it (is it, is it wicked?) can certainly apply to what I am writing about, which is that we need to channel our inner Marie Kondo, who is famous for helping us tidy up, and chuck stuff out by asking if it sparks joy.

Maybe I should have gone with “Is it wicked” or “Does it spark joy?” but I am writing about whether whatever we are working on in marketing is necessary.

Sing with me; you know the words to this one - “We have to do more with less”.

But being a tired, hackneyed trope doesn’t make it any less true; B2B marketing budgets are down on last year and predicted to be down or the same (which, with inflation, means down) next year.

The idea I am exploring is based on something I am stealing from software development and Extreme Programming, which is based on the idea that:

“a programmer should not add functionality until deemed necessary”.

Yes, this is a little dry, but as I briefly shared in my Tuesday 2¢ column on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, the phrase that caught my attention from this concept is “You Ain’t Gonna Need It” or YAGNI.

We are magpies in marketing, collecting all the shiny things, tools, metrics, campaign ideas, channels… all… the…. things… and we have all sorts of other things thrust into our nest from executives who want more video, a presence on Tikface or as my chum Cathy McKnight once described it “more cowbell”.

Obviously, I won’t rewrite the entire article here, and if my friends at CMSWire accept it, I’ll include a link to it in a future newsletter issue.

But suffice to say; it’s time to figure out what’s necessary.

And if it isn’t, YAGNI.

Thanks for reading this far :-)

Have a great week.

Cheers!

Ian

Ian Truscott | Chief Bottle Washer Rockstar CMO

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