I recently read a news story about a two year old girl who had caught a 20lb fish with her Barbie fishing rod. Amidst a whole hoard of professional fishermen and expensive equipment, the toddler with her toy rod and worm for bait, reeled in the catch of the weekend – a 30 inch Muskie. I’d like to bet that nobody had marked her out as competition or considered a Barbie rod a vital piece of equipment, and yet the result was clear. A perfect example as to why you should always keep an open mind.

Whilst logic can be relied on to determine many things, there are some things that will ultimately defy it – and never more so than with human behaviour. Analysing facts and figures can help to some extent, but ultimately there is no way to know what somebody is going to do or how somebody is going to respond without testing. It’s a crucial lesson to learn regarding your company’s marketing.

It’s easy to get stuck in a rut when it comes to marketing. There are a million tasks to do every day and it can be difficult to find time to overhaul your current marketing strategy – particularly when it is working fine. However, why should we be content with ‘fine’, when with a little bit of time and effort that ‘fine’ could be turned into ‘remarkable’?

As technology advances and your customers change, it’s crucial to ensure that your marketing is still relevant. If you’ve never branched out to email marketing, how do you know that it won’t make a positive impact on your sales? Without ever experimenting with different direct mail inserts, or promoting your products through SMS, how can you be sure that it won’t produce better response rates? Keeping an open mind about potential marketing opportunities is vital if you want your company to continue to progress. After all, you never know what might happen. Perhaps you’ll make a great catch too.