Jun 26
I finally dozed off around midnight and was up again at 4am. And I was thinking about---God help me---the future of marketing.
No, seriously.
Now, I'll admit I'm a hardcore AdGeek. And, yes, I think a lot about marketing. But it normally doesn't keep me up at night, even when I'm working on stuff for my own clients, much less thinking about the business at large.
And the last thing I wanted to do was write some long dissertaion on how marketing is changing and what we need to be doing to get ready and blah, blah, blah...
Yet...here we are.
See, I am a marketing copywriter (Yes, I KNOW you know that. Shush, I'm talking). I've written print ads and TV spots and radio spots. Lots of them. I've written websites and landing pages and email blasts. And I've commented before (a few years ago) about how, while we as an industry were talking about what to do when the "the change" happened...the change happened.
Of course, people are still talking about what to do when the change happens, and the change is still happening even as I type this. But I digress...
Let me see if I can show you the perspective I'm coming from here, starting on a macro scale, and moving into personal detail, before I get to what kept me up.
Iran and China, two autocratic, authoritarian states, can't control the news. For years, if you controlled the medium, you controlled the message. Now all it takes is a cell phone, and the message slips through your fingers no matter how tight your grasp. In china, there were the earthquakes that hit right before the Olympics. In Iran, it's the post-election protests.
Here little is different. Within the last two weeks we lost David Caradine, Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. North Carolina's governor was embroiled in scandal. Washington is trying to hash out health-care reform and revive a steadily sinking economy. And I've gotten the latest on all of them not from NYT, or CNN, or even Google News (all of which I get email updates from), but from Twitter or Facebook.
The Christian Science Monitor, one of the nations oldest nationally-circulated dailies, announced earlier this year that they were shelving their entire print operation and going completely digital. Word is that NYT and a few others are seriously considering similar options...even though no definitive revenue model has been developed yet.
Now then...as an Internet junkie, I couldn't be more thrilled. But as a marketer, I'm a little dismayed. Because it's not just about the news.
See...I don't watch TV. Well...let me rephrase that. I'm home with 3 boys during the day...so I watch a lot of cartoons (quiet...this post is not about my child-rearing skills). Or I watch the kids play video games.
Just as often, we're at the park, or the zoo, or a museum (see...I give them plenty of enrichment, too. So there.). When they nap, I'm on the computer working. When they sleep, I'm on the computer working...or I'm on the computer watching Hulu.com.
I can't tell you the last full :30 or :60 spot I watched.
But, looking at the last purchases I've made...from the Dell Mini 10 that I'm writing this on, to the Chik-fil-a we ate for dinner last night...those purchases were definitely influenced by marketing...just not print or broadcast.
Now, I know what you're thinking...one can't assume the market behaves the way you do. And you're right. But I'm not basing this solely on my own behavior. Chick-fil-a last night was my wife's idea. She's not on Twitter, and has only in the last few days started a Facebook account (and hasn't checked it since ;). But she received the Chick-fil-a special offer via email. She plans the grocery shopping using the sale updates on the grocery store websites and a few "frugal shopper" lists she belongs to.
And judging from the people I know who ARE on Twitter and Facebook, even when they DO watch TV, they are tweeting and updating during the commercials. Heck, my grandfather just set up a Facebook page and my grandmother uses email to keep in touch on mission trips deep into the Brazilian jungle (both are staunchly pre-boomer).
I'm not giong to go so far to say traditional marketing us dead. But I do think it's in trouble. And so is anyone who is pouring most of their marketing budget into it.
Unfortunately, too many people get into online/digital marketing and push hard for SEO. Optimization is like good design. It can important, but it is a secondary (possibly tertiary) element.
Now, there is no "medium" where the message can be self contained. The message might be initiated in traditional media (though it increasingly is not), but once out there, it takes on a life of its own. And it is likely that someone else---someone in the former audience---will use it to make something more interesting. More engaging. More inpactful.
As media gets more social and more interconnected, it becomes less important to "be found" and more important to actually MATTER. Because if you matter, if what you do matters, if what you say matters...then the people you matter to will spread your message to others to whom it might matter, in whatever form they deem relevant.
Reach is being re-defined. It used to be to spread your message to as many people as possible and hope it sticks with a certain percentage. Online technologies today mean that it is possible to send your message across deep but narrow networks of people that are going to care about it.
You don't have to make your message appeal to the masses. This is a good thing, because the more people you want to attract, the more diluted your message must be. But the more specific you are, the more likely your message will be to resonate with the people who matter to you.
But this requires a dramatic shift. your marketing efforts will need to look less like advertising and more like PR. Less like sales and more like conversation. Less about you, and more about your customer.
There are people out there who are doing it right. CEOs, managers and sales people who are engaging their customers on twitter. Companies using blogs to help their customers rather than simply talk about themselves. Business owners using carefully crafted emails over a month, rather than a 4000-word online sales page, to not only deliver the message, but build a relationship.
I'm not talking about a casual "come on over for barbecue...here, look at these pictures of my cat" relationship, but one of trust that comes from engaging with your prospects, listening to their concerns, answering their questions and treating them like more than the next sale.
I'm not going to forecast the future of the marketing medium. Right now it's up in the air as to whether the future of online media is going to be one which is federated, through something like Facebook Connect or Google Friend Connect, or aggregated, through something like Posterous or Friend Feed.
It will likely involve audio, video, pictures, text, flash, and who knows what else, spread across multiple sites, mediums and likely live real-world events, where people can choose when, where and how they interact with you.
But I can say with certainty that the future of marketing will be one of personal connection and one-on-one relationships with customers. Because they are listening. And if you're not talking, someone else is.
Truth is...it's easy.
Start a twitter account. Don't know who to follow? Visit http://search.twitter.com and search your company name. See what pops up.
Now here's a tip that sounds counter-intuitive: bad remarks are better than no remarks. Not in the same way that "any press is good press." Bad remarks let you know that your company has let someone down. Twitter gives you a chance to connect with them and make it right.
If no one is talking about you...then your company isn't making much of an impact. You've got a lot of work to do. More on that later.
Find the people who are talking about you...good or bad. Passion, for good or bad, is important. If you can convert a nay-sayer into an evangelist for your brand...you win. Or, if you can turn a mildly interested customer into a zealot...you win.
And all you have to do is show them a little attention--- not lip-service, but genuine attention. Talk to them. Be more interested in fixing than explaining. Then take the best two to five members of the crowd, and reward them for their efforts.
I followed a link from someone I follow on Twitter to his review of the new Mini that Dell had sent him for free. It was an honest review, with the good and bad spelled out in plain English (with photos). They didn't even ask him to review it. They sent it to him to say thanks, with no strings attached.
From that review, I went to Dell.com to check it out. I read other reviews. A week later I was walking out of Best Buy with one under my arm.
...
Last week I was talking to a colleague 75 miles away via Gmail chat. While we were talking, he decided he needed a new camcorder. While we talked, he did some research. He read reviews online. He asked a few friends online about it. He ordered it. Within 30 minutes, he'd gone from "I think I need a new camcorder" to "It should be here on Wednesday." And he was as well-armed to make the decision as anyone who might have spent a few hours thumbing through consumer reports. Maybe even better.
...
Yesterday, my wife got an email from Chik-fil-a saying they were giving out free chicken sandwiches from 5pm-8pm. Guess what we had for dinner...along with fries and drinks? And we saw lots of people there getting shakes and brownies and other stuff. It was standing-room only inside. And I know I'm not the only one who talked about it in Facebook and Twitter. I doubt they lost any money.
Contrast this to the KFC fiasco, where they promised people free chicken, and then pulled the rug out from under excited customers. (has anyone out there received their "raincheck?")
Again, marketing in the future is going to trend toward a relationship with your customers, and not "the same old advertising, but on the internet." Use blogs, Twitter, video...whatever feels right. Then, once you've figured out how to do it online, maybe you might think about...oh, I don't know...giving it a shot in the real world with customers, face-to-face?
Point is, the old traditional way is in bad shape, and the new way hasn't been codified yet. So get out there. Try something new. Something bold. Something brash. Something genuine.
I am. (stay tuned ;)
The future of marketing
I couldn't sleep last night.I finally dozed off around midnight and was up again at 4am. And I was thinking about---God help me---the future of marketing.
No, seriously.
Now, I'll admit I'm a hardcore AdGeek. And, yes, I think a lot about marketing. But it normally doesn't keep me up at night, even when I'm working on stuff for my own clients, much less thinking about the business at large.
And the last thing I wanted to do was write some long dissertaion on how marketing is changing and what we need to be doing to get ready and blah, blah, blah...
Yet...here we are.
See, I am a marketing copywriter (Yes, I KNOW you know that. Shush, I'm talking). I've written print ads and TV spots and radio spots. Lots of them. I've written websites and landing pages and email blasts. And I've commented before (a few years ago) about how, while we as an industry were talking about what to do when the "the change" happened...the change happened.
Of course, people are still talking about what to do when the change happens, and the change is still happening even as I type this. But I digress...
Let me see if I can show you the perspective I'm coming from here, starting on a macro scale, and moving into personal detail, before I get to what kept me up.
Iran and China, two autocratic, authoritarian states, can't control the news. For years, if you controlled the medium, you controlled the message. Now all it takes is a cell phone, and the message slips through your fingers no matter how tight your grasp. In china, there were the earthquakes that hit right before the Olympics. In Iran, it's the post-election protests.
Here little is different. Within the last two weeks we lost David Caradine, Ed McMahon, Farah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. North Carolina's governor was embroiled in scandal. Washington is trying to hash out health-care reform and revive a steadily sinking economy. And I've gotten the latest on all of them not from NYT, or CNN, or even Google News (all of which I get email updates from), but from Twitter or Facebook.
The Christian Science Monitor, one of the nations oldest nationally-circulated dailies, announced earlier this year that they were shelving their entire print operation and going completely digital. Word is that NYT and a few others are seriously considering similar options...even though no definitive revenue model has been developed yet.
Now then...as an Internet junkie, I couldn't be more thrilled. But as a marketer, I'm a little dismayed. Because it's not just about the news.
See...I don't watch TV. Well...let me rephrase that. I'm home with 3 boys during the day...so I watch a lot of cartoons (quiet...this post is not about my child-rearing skills). Or I watch the kids play video games.
Just as often, we're at the park, or the zoo, or a museum (see...I give them plenty of enrichment, too. So there.). When they nap, I'm on the computer working. When they sleep, I'm on the computer working...or I'm on the computer watching Hulu.com.
I can't tell you the last full :30 or :60 spot I watched.
But, looking at the last purchases I've made...from the Dell Mini 10 that I'm writing this on, to the Chik-fil-a we ate for dinner last night...those purchases were definitely influenced by marketing...just not print or broadcast.
Now, I know what you're thinking...one can't assume the market behaves the way you do. And you're right. But I'm not basing this solely on my own behavior. Chick-fil-a last night was my wife's idea. She's not on Twitter, and has only in the last few days started a Facebook account (and hasn't checked it since ;). But she received the Chick-fil-a special offer via email. She plans the grocery shopping using the sale updates on the grocery store websites and a few "frugal shopper" lists she belongs to.
And judging from the people I know who ARE on Twitter and Facebook, even when they DO watch TV, they are tweeting and updating during the commercials. Heck, my grandfather just set up a Facebook page and my grandmother uses email to keep in touch on mission trips deep into the Brazilian jungle (both are staunchly pre-boomer).
I'm not giong to go so far to say traditional marketing us dead. But I do think it's in trouble. And so is anyone who is pouring most of their marketing budget into it.
Unfortunately, too many people get into online/digital marketing and push hard for SEO. Optimization is like good design. It can important, but it is a secondary (possibly tertiary) element.
Now, there is no "medium" where the message can be self contained. The message might be initiated in traditional media (though it increasingly is not), but once out there, it takes on a life of its own. And it is likely that someone else---someone in the former audience---will use it to make something more interesting. More engaging. More inpactful.
As media gets more social and more interconnected, it becomes less important to "be found" and more important to actually MATTER. Because if you matter, if what you do matters, if what you say matters...then the people you matter to will spread your message to others to whom it might matter, in whatever form they deem relevant.
Reach is being re-defined. It used to be to spread your message to as many people as possible and hope it sticks with a certain percentage. Online technologies today mean that it is possible to send your message across deep but narrow networks of people that are going to care about it.
You don't have to make your message appeal to the masses. This is a good thing, because the more people you want to attract, the more diluted your message must be. But the more specific you are, the more likely your message will be to resonate with the people who matter to you.
But this requires a dramatic shift. your marketing efforts will need to look less like advertising and more like PR. Less like sales and more like conversation. Less about you, and more about your customer.
There are people out there who are doing it right. CEOs, managers and sales people who are engaging their customers on twitter. Companies using blogs to help their customers rather than simply talk about themselves. Business owners using carefully crafted emails over a month, rather than a 4000-word online sales page, to not only deliver the message, but build a relationship.
I'm not talking about a casual "come on over for barbecue...here, look at these pictures of my cat" relationship, but one of trust that comes from engaging with your prospects, listening to their concerns, answering their questions and treating them like more than the next sale.
I'm not going to forecast the future of the marketing medium. Right now it's up in the air as to whether the future of online media is going to be one which is federated, through something like Facebook Connect or Google Friend Connect, or aggregated, through something like Posterous or Friend Feed.
It will likely involve audio, video, pictures, text, flash, and who knows what else, spread across multiple sites, mediums and likely live real-world events, where people can choose when, where and how they interact with you.
But I can say with certainty that the future of marketing will be one of personal connection and one-on-one relationships with customers. Because they are listening. And if you're not talking, someone else is.
Truth is...it's easy.
Start a twitter account. Don't know who to follow? Visit http://search.twitter.com and search your company name. See what pops up.
Now here's a tip that sounds counter-intuitive: bad remarks are better than no remarks. Not in the same way that "any press is good press." Bad remarks let you know that your company has let someone down. Twitter gives you a chance to connect with them and make it right.
If no one is talking about you...then your company isn't making much of an impact. You've got a lot of work to do. More on that later.
Find the people who are talking about you...good or bad. Passion, for good or bad, is important. If you can convert a nay-sayer into an evangelist for your brand...you win. Or, if you can turn a mildly interested customer into a zealot...you win.
And all you have to do is show them a little attention--- not lip-service, but genuine attention. Talk to them. Be more interested in fixing than explaining. Then take the best two to five members of the crowd, and reward them for their efforts.
I followed a link from someone I follow on Twitter to his review of the new Mini that Dell had sent him for free. It was an honest review, with the good and bad spelled out in plain English (with photos). They didn't even ask him to review it. They sent it to him to say thanks, with no strings attached.
From that review, I went to Dell.com to check it out. I read other reviews. A week later I was walking out of Best Buy with one under my arm.
...
Last week I was talking to a colleague 75 miles away via Gmail chat. While we were talking, he decided he needed a new camcorder. While we talked, he did some research. He read reviews online. He asked a few friends online about it. He ordered it. Within 30 minutes, he'd gone from "I think I need a new camcorder" to "It should be here on Wednesday." And he was as well-armed to make the decision as anyone who might have spent a few hours thumbing through consumer reports. Maybe even better.
...
Yesterday, my wife got an email from Chik-fil-a saying they were giving out free chicken sandwiches from 5pm-8pm. Guess what we had for dinner...along with fries and drinks? And we saw lots of people there getting shakes and brownies and other stuff. It was standing-room only inside. And I know I'm not the only one who talked about it in Facebook and Twitter. I doubt they lost any money.
Contrast this to the KFC fiasco, where they promised people free chicken, and then pulled the rug out from under excited customers. (has anyone out there received their "raincheck?")
Again, marketing in the future is going to trend toward a relationship with your customers, and not "the same old advertising, but on the internet." Use blogs, Twitter, video...whatever feels right. Then, once you've figured out how to do it online, maybe you might think about...oh, I don't know...giving it a shot in the real world with customers, face-to-face?
Point is, the old traditional way is in bad shape, and the new way hasn't been codified yet. So get out there. Try something new. Something bold. Something brash. Something genuine.
I am. (stay tuned ;)
