Let’s rethink marketing for a second.

What if we did away with the notion of bigger, louder and shinier, and started focusing on the things that, y’know, really work?

That’s the concept behind Nick Westergaard’s new book, Get Scrappy, in which he addresses a business problem that, in most cases, is self-inflicted. Great marketing isn’t about having a big ad budget or keeping up with the social network of the week; it’s about working smart with what you have.

“More isn’t always better. Sometimes it’s just more.” – Nick Westergaard

We’ve praised the idea of doing more with less (see: The Art of Tidying Up Your Email List and A Minimalist Marketer’s Guide to Split Testing), but adopting “the scrappy mindset” goes beyond a digital detox.

Read on for key takeaways from our #EmailChat with Nick and how you can start getting scrappy with your marketing:

Better subscribers, smarter campaigns.

Getting scrappy isn’t about cutting corners or dumbing down your marketing. A “scrappy” marketer:

  • Puts their brain before their budget
  • Markets like a mousetrap
  • Sees ideas everywhere

So can email marketers adopt the scrappy mindset?

Rather than focusing on more subscribers and more sends, challenge yourself to attract better subscribers and send smarter campaigns.

Authenticity is the key to building a great brand.

What is it that makes a great brand? Think about it for a second.

Is it the messaging? The product? The people?

A great brand is all of these things, and that’s why having strong brand positioning is key to standing out from the competition. In a saturated digital space, what you say is just as important as what you sell.

Work towards these six scrappy business goals.

According to Get Scrappy, there are six key business objectives that brands should work towards: branding, community building, public relations, market research, customer service and lead generation.

Here’s the caveat: instead of working towards all of the goals, stick to one or two and really own them. Nick recommends creating a map that is SMART:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-related

Connect your digital dots.

Great content needs a great audience. Scrappy marketers know how to effectively integrate their content marketing and social media to create cohesion for their brand.

And when you add email to the mix, you’ve got yourself the makings of a winning marketing strategy.

More content isn’t better. Better content is better.

Simplifying your marketing isn’t necessarily doing less. It’s being more efficient and devoting time to the things that prove most effective.

More shouldn’t always be a goal. When we get caught up in doing everything, we lose track of why we set out to do it in the first place.

Go beyond vanity metrics.

Scrappy marketers measure what matters. A big email list, for example, means nothing if your subscribers aren’t opening or clicking through your emails. Rather than focus on the size of your email list, take a look at the number of people who are engaging with your emails.

Is your performance driving you closer to the objectives you set for your business? Always go back to your goal.

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

You could have a killer email marketing campaign, a savvy social media strategy and high-converting content, but if you’re not putting all of the pieces together, the brand experience can fall flat.

In order to have an efficient, successful and scrappy marketing strategy, you need to unify it all.

Get Scrappy is available now.

What’s Next?

Join us Thursday, July 14 at 12pm ET for our next #EmailChat with guest host MailCharts. We’ll be talking about email marketing strategies for retail brands.

See you then!