The Power of "So What?"

Marketing is a funny industry. Much of what we talk about often boils down to marketers marketing their marketing to other marketers—jockeying for industry recognition, loading on buzzwords, and spinning a story—marinating in our self-aggrandizement.

But how often do marketers ask themselves, "so what"? It is a simple question. It is not intended to come off sounding rude or flippant. "So what", when asked with intent, can be used to improve the status of our trade and bring meaningfulness from our work to reconnect marketing to the C-Suite.

It is the one question I've used over the years that always cuts to the bone. It removes us from marketing our marketing to ourselves, helping us sum up the relative importance of what we'll get from it all.

But over the years, as digital marketing has grown in size and scale, I have not heard the disciplined use of “so what” enough. And we a lot need more.

Begin with the Brief

It starts with the brief. That is the first step to align on what we hope to achieve and its importance—asking "so what" at the early stage means common goals will be better aligned.

The takeaways from a well-written brief are clear insights to help address our challenge. Carving out our audience and understanding (not dictating or blindly accepting) where they live regarding channels, tactics, and touchpoints.

Then crafting a unique mix of brand and performance, but proactively thinking about "so what" to align with the right objectives, ensuring measurements or testing.

Bake in Customer Centricity

While we talk about customer centricity non-stop, what do you actually do to deliver with consistency? What about your brainstorming of marketing ideas? Are you answering the question to help filter and shape ideas as a jump-off point to socialize and prioritize?

Yes, you've likely invested in personas and journey maps. So, what? What's the value they bring to the table? What brings them life with regularity? Are you applying customer stories to resolve for “so what” with relevant feature and benefit-based scenarios?

Yes, you have content and campaigns. So what? What are they delivering in terms of embedding customer value? Will they see you as serving them or only selling to them?

End of the day, we really hope to avoid prospects or customers looking at marketing efforts and declaring, "so what".

FOFO - Fear of Finding Out

Asking "so what" with regularity also means we overcome FOFO - Fear of Finding Out. It's our collective reluctance as marketers to establish what is occurring.

Reflecting on "so what" can be quite effective but also painful because it raises difficult questions. Are our tactics performing as planned? Have we tested to see if we can improve?

Let's admit that our opinions and conventions bias our work. A "so what" stance provides the needed rigor to validate our assumptions and avoid doing what we always do just because we've always done it that way.

An easy place to implement “so what” can be with your media buying agencies. Amidst the glossy promises of programmatic and growth-targeted performance media, see what happens when you ask “so what” to the buzzword bingo being thrown our way.

Delve deeper and proactively dissect what’s happening with your ad spend. By asking “so what” you’ll be much better off by dealing with the FOFO, creating transparency, and reducing any future surprises.

Empower our people in marketing

Ultimately, "so what" helps us prepare our people and teams. It is a mechanism to help themselves. It emanates from a place of safety, where people and teams have a foundation to connect the dots and track how KPIs feed OKRs.

When people are enabled to challenge the status quo, asking ourselves, our leaders, our vendors, and all involved to articulate “so what,” we’ll end up on the same page to drive the right results in the right ways.

Creating a climate where everyone asks, "so what" can be our secret weapon to develop a marketing culture where empowered people drive valuable business outcomes. That’s also one of the biggest benefits of developing the mindset and practices for new ways of working to transform your marketing.

Written by Michael Seaton. Partner at NavigateAgile, Michael Seaton specializes in leading executives and teams in marketing transformation through the practical implementation of agile marketing with new ways of thinking and working in modern marketing.