When NASA launches a rocket, they have a countdown. This is a useful warning for personnel to stand clear, but more importantly it’s a checklist of steps to take. For example they need to ensure that the rocket is fully fueled before the engines are started. Marketing campaigns (Marketing countdown) also have schedules of things that depend on other things being completed first. With consumer attention scattered over so many channels, each with their schedules, perhaps it’s time to rethink the entire marketing pipeline to ensure that no important steps are skipped.

Any step in a marketing campaign takes time to have an impact and the length of the delay depends on the media used. For example an advertising calendar for a magazine will identify dates to reserve space and later submit final advertising copy, long before the consumer picks up the magazine. Additional time will be needed before these dates to identify the publication to target, and which issue focus will attract the right attention to the marketing message. Being too late by a day means missing the boat.

The 20th Century saw the dawn of broadcast channels for marketing and the 21st has seen email, web and social media marketing also. Paper publications still exist, but they’re only one part of the mix. A customer winning message can be applied over multiple channels, but only if the schedules are laid out and aligned. It’s never been an easy job, and now it’s even harder. But when it comes to the grunt work of gathering the data about the opportunities, combining the cross-channel schedules and ensuring that all the steps on the marketing countdown are completed, at least you can depend on Telegenisys.