Why Marketing Is Like Fishing
Ron Strauss, WHAM! Advertising Creative Director
I’ve been a fisherman and marketing professional all my life. I LOVE both activities. Here’s the parallels I see between marketing and fishing. You need to know the water you fish (your market). It contains your prospects (fish), some desirable, others, not what you want to catch.
You need to experiment with different lures (marketing strategies and tactics) to find what your targeted fish (prospects or current customers) want today. What works today…may not work tomorrow. Conditions change, you must be ready to change lures (tactics, messages, offers) if results aren’t satisfactory.
Even when you get a strike or hook a fish (get a call or contact message), it’s not a done deal.That’s a new stage in the challenge. You must get the fish to your boat (company) and successfully get the fish inside the boat (convert and close the deal).
Once you get the fish on board, it’s your responsibility to treat the fish gently and safely. I mostly practice catch and release. I want to return the fish I catch today so they can grow larger and I catch them again next year and so on and so on for years to come. I take care of the resources I have today so I can enjoy them in the future.
