I was sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic recently. Everyone seemed to be going the same place I wanted to go. There was a bottleneck up ahead. Four lanes merged to three, which then merged to two and the streets could not handle the number of cars on the road. All of us car drivers sat there in the heat, inching along every now and then. It is frustrating when the mode of transportation you are riding, which is designed for fast speeds, is left idling on the highway. In my rearview mirror I saw an approaching man on a bicycle. He was weaving in and out of the cars. He rode past me and made good time as he peddled down the street. I thought what a smart man he was, to have taken a bike ride when the faster transportation was stuck.

Let me compare that little anecdote to what is happening in marketing right now. More than likely you have had some seismic shifts in the way you thought you would be doing marketing this year. The plans you made at the beginning of the year to get your brand in front of your customers have come to a complete stop. Tradeshows are canceled. Sporting venues are happening without fans in the stands. Golf outings are in mothballs for another year. Meeting in person has become taboo. How do you accomplish your marketing goals when the avenues for marketing have all been shut down? The answer is, you shift to a new vehicle. You can still reach your goals, you just need to go about it using a different marketing method. So if you had counted on an event to promote your brand to a specific group, simply choose a new way of doing the same thing.

Maybe you thought "but a bike is so much smaller than a car!” Does that mean that my marketing must be downsized and repeated thousands of times to be as effective as a large marketing venue, for instance? Your marketing may not need to be downsized. In fact it may need to be upsized. There are places where both cars and bikes would have trouble traveling, such as high, rocky mountains. However, elephants wouldn’t have the same trouble if you think about it. Elephants are sure-footed and powerful. Sure they lumber along, but they can travel a long way in hard terrain. That’s what Hannibal, the king of Carthage, did when he attacked Rome in 218 BC. He crossed the Alps in northern Italy rather than travel around them. He tried something that no one had ever thought of doing before his time and it worked.

A shift in your marketing away from the tried and true methods you have used in the past is a bit risky. But if you can think outside of the confines of what has worked in the past and focus on what you are trying to accomplish – attracting customers to your brand – you will find that the restraints of what-has-worked-before thinking will come undone. In that new way of thinking, you just might come up with something that gets the attention of your target market better than what you had originally planned to do. The question is not one of proportion: is the marketing bigger or smaller, it is a question of does it draw the attention of the people I want to do business with or not.

Let’s put some practical solutions to all of this. If a golf outing has been canceled, what is a way to still have fun with your customers in a non-touching, yet interactive way? How about sponsoring a video golf tournament with your customers, such as World Golf Tour (WGT.com) that can be played during someone’s lunch hour. Treat your customers to an online event. Send them a gift basket with the same stuff you would have given them at your outdoor golf outing. Interact with them just as you would on the real links. If you are not into games, how about a video Ted-type talk that can be used as professional education credits. Many sales reps are not allowed in customers’ doors right now. Use the video conferencing formats available to you to promote your brand by sharing key information about your products and services.

If your marketing has stopped, change your vehicle. You may need to step out of the automobile and onto a bike… or climb on the back of an elephant! Large or small does not matter as long as it helps you achieve your goals in a new way.