If you always do what you’ve always done.
You’ll always get what you got.

I read that for the first time recently in a book about training for rowing. It just stood out. It’s so true and so relevant to so many things, but especially to marketing. Every business has traditionally always built their marketing plans on what they did last year. Their budgets are set by looking at the past and making judgement to do it again.

The thing is, times they are changing. There’s completely new surroundings now (and there always will be). Advertising is less effective, print costs are high, inboxes are filling up with spam and yet – we return to these tried and tested approaches year on year to deliver our messages.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got…

…but perhaps less of it, after all, there are new kids on the block, up-and-coming competitors that want a piece of your pie.

Be brave.

Push the boundaries. Set aside some budget to get creative. Do something that stands out and makes you get noticed. Promotion, campaigns, marketing are about attracting the attention of those that will be interested in your service or product. Ask yourself  how can you attract attention. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but it does need to be creative.  It’s those that stand out that get remembered no matter what the economic environment.

We could all find a reason to like the Snow. Whether it’s snowball fights with the kids, sledging down hills, the necessity of warm fires, or snug duvets, cosy layers of thermals and for those of us who think we hate it, we enjoy and appreciate being indoors looking out at it!

But on a serious note, the Snow can create a slippery path for many Retailers and Businesses especially those on High Streets and villages reliant on footfall, if you’ll excuse the pun. Stating the obvious, if people can’t get out, shops are empty, shops empty means staff cuts, staff cuts means higher unemployment and the chain continues down that steep slope!  Earlier in 2010 the snow cost the British economy millions of pounds per day. We find ourselves in the next few weeks heading for a similar if not worse spell of weather!

But there’s no need to loose out on the lack of visitors to your shop or store, not in this day and age. Every retailer big or small needs to have a website with an online shopping facility. They don’t have to be expensive all singing all dancing e-commerce sites, it doesn’t have to be a competition against the big boys but you can place yourself in the same arena. Remember, every large retailer set out as a small guy and you can always develop your own site to cope with capacity as you grow. Use the resources that are out there, try the likes of Ebay or Amazon to help you set up a shopping cart to sell your items online.  Take the time to learn how to use them and set yourself up. Don’t be left out in the cold this winter!

I’m not renowned for leaping to embrace new technology, if anything I’m known for dragging my heels. However, call me a good old-fashioned girl, but when technology is fun and exciting, I do want to shout about it. Now, I’m not going to profess that I know a lot about it but Augmented Reality (AR) is really grabbing my interest. Where 3D has seriously disappointed me, AR is floating my boat!

Augmented Reality (put as simply as I can) is combining amazing interactive 3D experiences with reality in real time. It’s bringing graphics alive and into our lives. When using Augmented Reality our senses are enhanced, so what we hear, see, feel and smell will be stimulated to the point we’ll be asking ourselves ‘am I experiencing something real or is this a computer generated encounter’! Sure, we’ll know which one it is but reality is starting to blur at the edges.

It’s a scientific minefield to get into the ins and outs of how it works. But as I understand it, it allows for information to be stored on a chip or a barcode that when viewed through a device (such as a mobile phone for now) will literally project a 3D experience in front of you – remember Princess Leia in Start Wars projected from R2D2? or think of Tom Cruise in Minority Report where someone’s iris will be read and specific adverts are shown just for him.

The future is about to get Augmented. One development suggested, is based on you wearing a small device that takes in data of our surroundings, gathers data from the net and projects the information onto any surface in front of you or even on you. So for example you’re buying a new car, you go to the garage, look at a SAAB 93, with AR you will be able to call up all the information you need about that car onto the bonnet of that car! Games companies will release games where characters can perform actions in your living room, even from your hands.

What really excites me about AR is that I think it will become the way forward for marketing and advertising, maybe not in the near future (although some companies are starting to use it in magazine advertising) but definitely in our lifetime. It’s a fun exciting way to promote your product or brand and the possibilities are phenomenal. Here’s an example of how it’s already entering the market.