If you read this blog regularly, I imagine you have two questions running through your mind. Let me go ahead and answer those.
No, again, this isn’t as ridiculous as it sounds. And yes, I watch a lot of movies.
Let’s be honest about this for a second, there are a lot of similarities between marketers and Predator. Look past the gruesome rampage through the jungles of Central America and highly advanced weaponry, and you can probably already recognize many of the parallels.
Before this gets any weirder, here are 3 marketing lessons straight out of the Predator franchise.
[hr style=”3″ margin=”40px 0px 40px 0px”]
1. Predator can find his target with advanced technology.
First of all, predator has really cool technology. The Predator’s advanced optics and other advanced targeting equipment allows him to see his prey despite the terrain. As big as he is, even Arnold Schwarzenegger is difficult to find in the jungle without Predator’s advanced optical equipment.
Marketers are similar in that they need be able to target audiences as precisely as possible. Luckily, many marketing and tech companies have developed advanced targeting solutions that can improve your marketing.
Even basic services used by many marketers on a daily basis have options to target geography, keywords, and tagged browsers (remarketing). Some services, like EDA Online, can even provide you with very precise information about your audience.
Just like Predator, modern marketers have to be able to find their audience before they can begin to effectively market to them.
[hr style=”3″ margin=”40px 0px 40px 0px”]
2. Predator has the right weapon to bring down his prey.
Ok, sure, Predator can see his target in all different types of terrain, but he also has the right weapons to take down whatever (or whomever) he is hunting. Sure, Predator is big and strong. But he is only the great hunter because of his weapons. Fancy optics are only extremely useful because of Predator’s arsenal.
Again, marketers are very similar in that they need to have the right arsenal to get their messaging to the right audience. There is no point in designing effective banner ads or creating engaging content if you aren’t using the right channels to promote it.
As an effective marketer, you have to be constantly looking to develop a large arsenal of channels to deliver your messaging to your audience. Utilizing social media, the display network, paid search, events, and print publications can all be extremely effective in reaching your audience.
Without utilizing the right arsenal of marketing channels, your marketing messaging can be rendered completely useless.
[hr style=”3″ margin=”40px 0px 40px 0px”]
3. Predator adjusts to the situation.
No matter the situation, Predator is able to adjust. There are a number of sequels, reboots, and transmedia spinoffs in the Predator universe. Each of these introduce Predator in a different setting and, while things may not always work out for them, it’s still extremely hard to take down a Predator.
Usually it takes a large amount of humans or Aliens to take one down, all because Predator adjusts to the situation.
This is an extremely important lesson for any marketer looking to be more successful in their career. In the past, marketers would often plan and create a campaign, send out all their media buyers to get the timeslots, ad spaces, and what-have-you, and then it would go out. It was point and shoot. Once the campaign was out, it was extremely difficult to change anything.
Not anymore.
Now, you have the opportunity to readjust your campaign to market realities. Through available analytics programs, you have the metrics needed to evaluate the performance of a large part of your campaigns and adjust in real-time.
If you aren’t monitoring and adjusting your campaigns to respond to real-time developments, you won’t ever be a truly successful marketer.
If Predator seemed like a bit of a long shot to teach you about marketing, then you probably aren’t alone. Surprisingly, there were good lessons, admittedly buried deep under the surface. However, please don’t hide behind the fern at your office and nerf gun your co-workers.
[acf field=”cta_3″ post_id=”option”]
