I was talking to a vendor yesterday about a shift in strategy for one of my clients.  When I first started talking about our upcoming PR strategy, she and I both agreed that we had several issues that were keeping us from developing a clear plan.  But now that a few weeks have passed, it turns out that we got rid of a bunch of the roadblocks that were holding us back and can now pursue a very straightforward PR strategy. 

“The problem solved itself” — how often have you heard that old cliche?  But in this case and in at least a handful that come to mind, the cliche is true.  As I think about it, the relationship between difficult/high-risk projects and bad ideas may be close to 1:1!!

I think one of the reasons we may be seeing this phenomenon more often is that in the world of the web, social media and mobile platforms, there are a number of well known rules:

— Avoid starting a business without the “dot com”

—  Ask for as little personal information as possible — are you really going to use that data?

— Give online customers some very obvious choices to click on — more choice is not better

— Don’t make SEO an afterthought

… this list is getting sort of long, does anyone want to add to it?

The point here is that online and mobile marketing strategy is critically an art of the possible.  Yes you can achieve almost any online goal with unlimited time and money, but that’s not a good use of either.  And you get no points in life for the time you spend hitting your head against a wall.  (It is my understanding, however, that the time you spend fishing is not subtracted from the end of your life. 🙂 )

So if what you are trying to do seems really hard, take a minute, take a day, a week and try to work on some of the internal elements.  Are they important, critical, or just “something you’ve always done?”  Are your partners or vendors really giving you the best possible advice?  Or do they have an angle or other motivation?  You may need to understand the factors behind the advice you are getting and do a little “head shaping.”

So good luck out there, and have fun.  And always avoid hitting your head against the wall if you can.

— pp