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The Evangelist Marketing Minute is a weekly thinking launch point that is always short enough to read in about 60 seconds. It covers marketing, branding, positioning, language, and public relations. Your email address is never shared, with anybody, for any reason.

The Baltimore Ravens were nine point underdogs in last night’s conference championship football game against the New England Patriots. In the regular season, the Ravens were a scrappy 10-6, to the Patriots’ dominant 12-4. If you watch Downton Abbey, the Patriots are seen as lords, football royalty, while the Ravens are of lesser lineage, the footmen and valets to the better born. The Ravens beat the Patriots soundly yesterday, shutting them out in the second half. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady was 67-0 when leading at halftime. Until last night.

The marketing and business lesson here? Keep yourself in the game. Stay active. Be an option to your prospective customers. Keep communicating, from as many media and platforms as possible. Stay focused on emotion and real-world value. Get the messaging right before you blast it. Build relationships with the media. Do the right things, and keep doing them, in spite of your size relative to the competition; in spite of your market share relative to the competition; in spite of your retail shelf placement (or lack of it) relative to the competition.

After all, in marketing, bloodlines don’t matter. Effort matters. Message matters. Consistency matters. Relentless, high-value communication matters.

Get in the game and stay in the game. Because then, anything can happen.

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