Think of your marketing tactics—social media, paid search, PR, paid media, content—as ducklings.

Drop them all into the big bad business pond without guidance and they’ll paddle off in different directions, paddling hard, getting nowhere fast. The result? A ducking mess.

As that wise old duck Sun Tzu put it:

“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

In nature, a mother duck provides direction. Her ducklings swim in a line, conserving energy and moving further, faster, together. Marketing should be the same: the right strategy channels energy, keeps everyone aligned, and makes the whole operation more effective.

But here’s where marketing must differ from nature. If your strategy simply mirrors your competitors, you’ll just join the same flock, chasing the same customers, in the same direction.

To quote another wise duck, Sir John Hegarty:

“When others zig, you zag.”

The Duck Mother approach is to step back with you before you let your ducks loose. Channel your inner Einstein duck:

“The framing of a problem is often far more essential than its solution.”

We’ll help you take a long look at the pond:

• Which part of the pond do you want to play in?

• Where do you want to get to?

• What are all the other ducks in the pond doing?

• Are you even playing in the right pond?

Duck Mother works with businesses to identify where you’re going, how you want to be perceived, and what you expect from your activity when you get there.

Then it’s time to brief all your ducks and embark on your journey — knowing the pond may change shape, new ducks may enter, and the ones already there will react to your movements.

Or if you want it less ducky, it comes down to:

Research. Target. Position. Quantify Success. Execute. Refine.

That’s the essence. We will guide you through that process, sometimes hands on, sometimes with outside input, sometimes guiding your internal team… always focussed on an approach that fits your business, not ours.