Marketing in the New Millennium

In the wake of the most recent market slump, many business who survived have learned to market in a whole new way. The status quo no longer produces the desired results, and big, slow companies are feeling the affects of antiquated marketing thinking.

Marketing in the new millennium means discovering what your potential clients, customers, patients or whatever, want and need and then addressing those issues specifically. It means reaching out to your customers with customized, individualized marketing messages that they can relate to and speak to. It means being part of a discussion, not just blasting out your marketing until people are tired of seeing it, praying that someone will respond. Marketing for today and tomorrow means crafting a message and targeting your audience, interacting with your audience, and providing solutions that work. Your marketplace will expect it and if you don’t deliver, you may end up with numerous bad reviews about your business that people read before they choose to do business with you.

David Meerman Scott, author of “The New Rules of Marketing and PR” crafted his very successful book based largely on feedback from the marketplace he exists in. While he was writing the book, he would post chapters and ideas to his blog which can be found here:

http://www.webinknow.com/

The results is a book that is a composite based on many individual thoughts, ideas and criticisms. It’s a fluid experience that would not have been possible had he not had the insight to have his book critiqued by what became it’s readers and supporters. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend you read his book and check out his blog. He is a great example of an entrepreneur who has been very successful at leveraging the internet and social media to market his message.

Marketing in the new millennium means understanding, or hiring someone who understands, the ever-changing world wide web and how to harness it’s power for the benefit of your business. Intrusive marketing is out, thoughtfully crafted, individualized marketing is in, and your website, along with it’s other online components, is the hub from which all of this marketing can resonate.

Take time to revisit your marketing strategy, both online and offlline. Revisit opportunities to connect with your clients and customers, and start listening to what they are saying. There may be a hidden opportunity for growth, and the creation of your own blue ocean.

Authenticity In a Skeptical World

Wikipedia defines Authenticity as “The quality of being genuine or not corrupted from the original” but what does that mean. On a more fundamental level as humans, we all have built in right or wrong meters. You know when you are doing something bad, dishonest, or wrong. Yet I see so many companies that have an Authenticity shortage.

Authenticity is corruptible from the top down, so it’s fixable, and more importantly, preventable from the top down too. This means that, as a business owner, the responsibility to stay genuine and, to use the parlance of our times, to ‘keep it real,’ rests squarely on your shoulders.

You know when you advertise something, or make an offer, whether or not it’s true or disingenuous. It can be tempting to throw in “not quite true” statements that are “almost” factual because, hey, these statements make you, your company and your offering sound better. The issue is that they aren’t true, and these statements are risky business. They have the potential to tarnish your reputation and hurt your business rather than to improve it (which is ironic because the reason you tell these little white lies is presumably to grow your business…).

Take a good look at your business. Remember why you started it. Remember what you love about it. Remember what you want other people to love about it. Use that passion to promote your business, because that passion is real, that passion is genuine, and that passion will keep you authentic in our ever more skeptical business landscape.

-Brian Forrester

The Death of Antiquated and Intrusive Media

The death of many intrusive, one way, and/or antiquated media is upon us.  For many, this comes as a blessing.  If you aren’t prepared for it, and it’s the only way you market your business, you may want to pay attention.

In the old days you may put an ad in the Yellow Book, where you could sit right next to everyone else who does what you do, and hope for the phone to ring. Well, Verizon sold the phone book for a reason- they saw that medium’s impending doom. Phone book use is dropping big time as more and more consumers turn to the web to find answers fast. While the phone book isn’t intrusive, it is certainly one way and increasingly a more antiquated media outlet.  Phone book ad sales have plummeted in the past 5 years as more and more business turn towards the internet to spend their marketing dollars.

Think about it, what do you do when you need to find a restaurant, get an oil change, or find an A/C repair man? Technology is growing so rapidly now, that many people get answers almost immediately from their phones. Really though, the answer for most people is the same- we go to the internet when we want answers and we want them fast.  We search them out in search engines like Google or Bing, or we ask for suggestions and read recommendations on sites like Yelp, Twitter or Facebook.

The problem with this antiquated marketing is that it doesn’t allow consumers to interact. When was the last time you looked in your phone book and could instantly read reviews from someone who ate at the restaurant you’re thinking of going to? Umm….never!  If you want to find out the dirt on a restaurant that could possibly save you time, money and a bad experience, you can ask people you trust or read reviews online.

Wouldn’t it be nice to learn that 30 people thought the food in a particular restaurant sucked, the bathrooms were dirty and the waiter was rude? Well, with the internet you can find out BEFORE having the experience.  Not only that, you can find out where to go to have a wonderful, relaxing experience with superior service and fair pricing.

In fact, the Yellow Pages company has moved online in an effort to keep their company afloat, but I fear it may be too little too late for them. We shall see…

The Yellow Page medium for advertising was fairly effective when people turned to the Yellow Pages to look something up. I know clients who used to spend upwards of $20,000 a year on their Yellow Page ad. No longer. That medium has become antiquated and is no longer effective.

A much more annoying type of advertising, commonly referred to as intrusive media, is marketing that slaps you in the face; uninvited, and usually unwanted.

How many times have you been watching your local morning news on the TV only to have some super annoying car “salesman” yelling in your face about some limited time inventory reduction deal? I use the word salesman in quotations because if these guys had a clue about marketing and advertising, these commercials wouldn’t be around. In fact, we’ve been looking to buy a new car lately, but have actually left a couple of dealerships because the “salesmen” are more like buzzards swarming in on a kill than qualified sales professionals ready to help answer your questions.

This type of in your face, intrusive, try to sell you something you don’t need (or want) approach is dying off as we enter the “age of the consumer” where consumer’s voices are increasingly more important and more easily heard. Companies who fail to adapt to these changes will soon find themselves slim on new customers.  Smart companies are paying attention to what their buyers actually want and need.

There is another type of marketing seeing big changes. It’s too new to call antiquated but as far as the internet is concerned, it’s super old school. I’m talking about email, and it’s marketing equivalent the email blast. This type of electronic marketing where your message is sent to a prospect via email, can still be effective. But the rules have changes. Spam laws are constantly changing, and in order to have an email blast that gets through without ending up in someone’s spam box, it is best to first build a list through some other offering and then market to a clean list that has given your permission to market.  The term “permission based marketing” has evolved from this concept and is more in line with what consumers what and expect from the companies they patronize.

This is the age of the consumer, so be wise and get interested in sites like Twitter, Yelp, Facebook, Linkedin and the like.  Whether or not you are in the conversation, people are probably talking about your business.  Being part of the conversation allows you hear what’s going on, solve problems, build a following and promote your brand the right way.