Today's Marketing Cookie - You Are A Marketing Hero

Today's fortune came from Leann Phoenix of Stow, MA. To know her would be to acknowledge that Leann has a heart of gold... an uncommon trait among mortals. She is an accomplished marketer, a terrific artist, a generous volunteer in her church and her community, and a pleasure to work with at CommCreative. You should follow her on Twitter: @LeannPhoenix

Today's Marketing Cookie states the obvious. With the exception of time travel, it is impossible to plan your past.

However, there is a certain truth here that, while obvious, is often neglected by many marketers. We have numbers to hit, goals to achieve, and objectives to reach. In order to track results, marketers spend a lot of time measuring and analyzing the performance of their campaigns. By measuring, the best marketing professionals use the data to optimize the tactics they employ in each channel. It works. I know, because I track, measure and optimize campaigns every day.

The problem with tracking, measuring and optimizing your campaigns based on the data, is that all of the data is coming from the past.  It is very tempting, even for the smartest marketer, to use yesterday's performance data in order to make plans for the future. Unfortunately, the future doesn't like to wear yesterday's clothes. The future doesn't want to buy yesterday's products. In fact, the future would prefer to forget all about yesterday. While yesterday's data can help you optimize an existing campaign, you must NOT use it to create your next campaign. No. Planning should not come from the past, it should come from your imagination, intuition and inspiration.

We must become the super heroes of marketing. We must beat down the evil villainy of "Lazy Logic", "Dumb Data" and "Mundane Meritocracy". Rather than follow the tempting trends of yesterday, we much innovate and create new ones for tomorrow. Rather than build lethargic programs based on last month's math, we must inspire the world with campaigns based on what no one has seen before. We must rise above, take risks and create campaigns based on what we have in our hearts. We must run, jump and fly forward with what we believe in our guts!

You can do it. You have an unlimited imagination, and you are ready to create the world's next "big thing". You are quick, nimble and faster than real-time. You are motivated, fearless and brave enough to leap tall line charts in a single bound. As the fortune says, put on your cape, put your mind into planning today, and look into the future!