Football teams have evolved their rosters through the years – just like baseball teams did years before. You have short yardage runners, nickel backs, receivers who only play on third downs, and kickers who are especially talented at nailing long field goals. (If you can kick a long one, shouldn’t you be able to kick a short one even better?) They have specialists galore.
The business-as-sports analogies can get old, but at times they are appropriate.
You have a marketing director, or a marketing coordinator, or even a few people in your marketing department. That means your marketing needs are covered, right?
There are dozens of positions on a football team and, similarly, there a lot of marketing specialties. No one person can have the necessary capabilities to handle all the various marketing needs – and typically even two or three fall short. That’s where you find the gaps. The creative wiz who can brand and make eye-catching graphics may not have the expertise with the written word, or with media buying, or with managing a Google Adwords account. A web designer may not be as efficient as a website builder, or if they can do both of those things, there’s a good chance they wouldn’t be as good at maintaining an ongoing program.
And that doesn’t even count video work, radio production, the creation of white papers, or direct mail – whether via the post office or the digital world. There is just too much for one or even a few marketers to master. Why try to fight it?
You wouldn’t expect that third down receiver to toss the touchdown pass and typically most coaches don’t want their high-priced quarterback blocking defenders. In this case, the sports analogy works just fine. Ask for help with that out-of-the-ordinary project when you need it and be excellent at what you regularly do. It’s a win-win.
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