The Bidlack Strategy Sheets
Read and download our helpful Strategy Sheets to guide and focus your communications thinking, and to get a feel for the Bidlack marketing communications philosophy. They can also be a valuable homework assignment prior to working with us, to help you define your business challenges and goals.
STRATEGY SHEET 1:
Communicating with the Black Dog
The Fundamental Rule of Marketing Communications
BLACK DOG COMMUNICATION is the process of recognizing that most communication in our field is one-way communication: Your message travels outbound … with no response and no proof that what you had to say has been absorbed by your target audience, or for that matter, even noticed.
Black Dog Communication is a mindset: Understanding and accepting the fact that the audience with whom you are communicating will remain unseen and unheard in their own world, aloof and uncaring. Until and unless they choose to respond to your message, you will never know if indeed what you had to say was truly absorbed.
Recognizing that your audience is never very interested in your message, at least initially, is an important fact marketers must face. Only through the acceptance of this situation will you be able to develop the right approach to communicating your specific message: An approach which must involve relevance and sincerity worthy of return contact by those whom you wish to reach.
Failure to Communicate
(Based on a true story.) You look out your window. It’s dark. Your dog is out there somewhere in the backyard. The dog is dark too. Jet-black, in fact. A black dog in a black night. And you want to go to bed…
Somehow you must entice your dog to come back inside. You can’t see your target audience, but you know it’s out there. And you won’t be able to gauge the effectiveness of your communication unless or until the dog appears at the back door. Only then will you know that the dog biscuit in your hand has communicated the desired message. Marketing communication is black dog communication. Because communicating with an unseen audience is one-way communication.* *Newton’s Third Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Bidlack’s Third Law: For every marketing action there is a positive reaction, but only if the initial action was correctly aimed, properly timed, and of interest to the target audience.
What is a Candy Bar Descriptor, and why do you need one? Read Strategy Sheet 2: The Candy Bar Descriptor
