I’m not a follower (to use social media and religious vernacular) of the Dalai Lama, but some of the statements attributed to him are worth contemplating.

One that resonates is his comment about what surprised him most about humanity. Here’s his observation:

“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

It’s great advice for marketers. In the last few years, FOMO has driven us to sacrifice everything that has always worked for acquiring and keeping customers, in pursuit of the bright new shiny digi-object.

We run around like headless chooks, trying to make the new new thing (the latest digi-object) work as well as the proven thing did. But we get so caught up following this marketing fashion, that we ignore the marketing fundamentals.

We forget that customers are king and develop the false belief that content is king. And we think that if we just keep moving to the next new new thing, no-one will ever discover the truth that most of those new new things we tried, often failed.

And we spend our marketing careers having never really achieved anything of significance, except to spend a bunch of marketing budgets. All we have to show for it is a legacy of digital white noise.

It doesn’t matter if you have an online business or an offline one, or a combination of both, you only need to know these four things about your customers to succeed:

• name
• phone number
• street addresses
• email address

Of course you will need to use other channels to acquire and keep customers, but you can test these over time to determine the most cost-effective.

Curiously I’ve just been asked to preach to a bunch of marketers because to quote the owner of the SEO company involved: “my clients are complaining that digital channels don’t pay for themselves and they want to know more about direct marketing, so can you help please?”

Personally I think the Dalia Lama should write a book on marketing – I just found this quote that could easily apply to those alleged digital marketing experts:

“You must not hate those who do wrong or harmful things; but with compassion, you must do what you can to stop them – for they are harming themselves, as well as those who suffer from their actions”

Peace be with you…