Luck is not a Strategy

March has a way of making everyone talk about luck. Four-leaf clovers. Lucky breaks. Right place, right time. And of course, Saint Patrick's Day.

But here’s the thing, when it comes to your Marketing, Luck is not a strategy.

If the growth of your business depends on a random referral coming in, or someone remembering your name at the right time, or just hoping this month is better than the last. What you really have is wishful thinking, and unfortunately, wishful thinking isn’t predictable, and it doesn’t scale. 

Maybe you’ve seen a competitor take off seemingly overnight; all of a sudden, they’re everywhere, they’re always busy, and they’re taking your business. You might be inclined to think they “lucked out”, they were just in the right place at the right time. But the truth is (with some very rare exceptions) luck, had nothing to do with it. 

What you don’t see is the work they’re doing in the behind the scenes; testing offers, renfining messages, following up, and being consistent with ad spends and maintaining contact through the customer journey. What looks like luck from the outside, is usually compound consistency.

When it comes to relying on chance or reacting over strategy, most businesses fall into one of three common traps:

1. Random Acts of Marketing
It’s important to be realistic about the time and effort it takes to run an effective Marketing strategy. Planning and scheduling are so important. Posting when you “have time”, or only running campaigns when it slows down, can give the impression that your business isn’t as organized as a competitor, and having a sporadic presence makes it more difficult to track and gain insights from your campaigns. One steady campaign over 12 months, beats three big bursts and nine silent ones.

2. Copying Your Competitors
Seeing your competitors thrive in a tough market can get you thinking “If it worked for them, it’ll work for us.” But without understanding their audience, budget, or positioning you could be setting yourself up for a fall. Everyone wants to be the next Amazon, so naturally we look to success stories for inspiration, but when the founders share their rags to riches stories, they’re showing us the highlight reel, neatly connecting the dots backwards, and neglecting all the experiments and prefect market timing that led them there. 

You don’t need to copy someone else’s success, you need to understand your audience and your metrics. Look at your customers, their lifetime value, their path to purchase, analyze your website, your traffic, sources, and conversions. Imitating someone else’s strategy might not land with your customers, and likely won’t feel authentic to your brand.

‍

3. Short-Term Thinking
Offering steep discounts to draw attention can generate new business, but when was the last time you went back to that business and paid full price? Discounting to create quick cash flow erodes the value of your products and services, and makes that discounted price, your new price from now on. Demonstrating value is a better way to attract new long-term, higher-value customers. Build brand equity, instead of chasing trends.

Look at your customer journey and build a predictable sales funnel. Allocate the time, effort and budget to each stage of the purchase cycle and the process looks more like a well-run machine than random luck. When your Marketing is systemized, leads, sales, and growth are engineered and intentional. 

If you want to remove luck from your marketing, ask yourself:

• Do we know exactly where our leads come from?
• Are we showing up consistently every week?
• Do we have one clear core offer?
• Are we tracking performance monthly?
• Would revenue collapse if referrals slowed down?

If any of those make you uncomfortable, good. That’s where strategy begins, and each question tells you where to start. Do you understand your data, are you being consistent, is your message clear and unique? 

This month, instead of hoping for a lucky break, build something predictable.

Because luck will only get you so far, the rest is discipline.

‍