When we’re tackling marketing strategy alone, there’s a high risk that you’ll be faced with a ‘false summit’ – an assumed goal that isn’t really your true objective. It might occur when you haven’t been given all the information required to correctly identify the true summit (objective), or when you’ve followed an indirect route to the true summit that requires reaching some false (unnecessary) goals first.

In simple terms it might mean having a goal of 500 webinar registrants (the false summit) instead of an objective of 50 attendees (the real summit). You focus all your efforts on sign-ups rather than show-ups. It’s only when the webinar is live and nobody shows that you realise you haven’t nurtured the registrants and they’ve forgotten all about it.

What happens when you encounter a false summit in marketing strategy is:

• The false summit blocks the sight of the real summit until you climb higher, so you might be unprepared to reach the real summit. If you’ve used all resources to reach the false summit, you might have nothing left to continue.
• The false summit can come as a shock, leaving you fatigued and unmotivated to continue. You’ve already invested so much time and energy into reaching the false summit, that you’d rather turn back than keep pushing on.

How to overcome the false summit:

1. Most importantly, check your map! Your marketing strategy should be based on all available information, giving you the most accurate picture of the path ahead. You should understand not just what the real summit looks like, but the milestones and waymarkers to watch out for along the way. Using the five Ds of navigation – destination, distance, direction, duration, description – you can map your marketing strategy to avoid working towards a false summit.
2. Always have some reserves. Plan to invest 85% of budget and resources rather than 100%, so that if you do reach a false summit there is a little extra to navigate the remaining path to the real summit. It’s better to underspend than overspend, so adding a budget line for last minute opportunities or unexpected cost increases is always wise.
3. Keep calm and carry on (as they say). Or ask for help. Hillwalkers and mountaineers are always prepared for the worst so that when they do experience a false summit, they can keep calm and carry on. Marketers could learn a lot!

Strategic false summits are not inevitable, they can be avoided with careful preparation and planning. But it’s also not game over if you do encounter a false summit. You can press pause, regroup, and start again. And if you need a helping hand to point you in the right direction, House of Comms is here.