Are you forward looking when it comes to marketing, trying out novel techniques? Or does it scare you and your business?
Where do you rate yourself (your brand / your company) on the continuum below… with the dinosaurs, stuck in the past? Or with the bold ones, going all out on new marketing?
There is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to social media, engagement models, experience and engagement marketing. New terminology with dazzling depth. Measurement systems that are not set in stone, with ROI that is unclear, its systems are still a bit nebulous, and where there are wins and failures. Let alone speak of true real-time-marketing. Very uncomfortable for those lagging behind, and those stuck in GRP-thinking.
But it is important to at least “lean forward” and pull some of those futuristic tools into the current marketing mix. Experiment with some of these instead of waiting for all of the uncertainty to be cleared up. Why? The consumer is already there! The world has changed. And it is important that businesses and brands grab the bull by the horns.
Be confident. Be daring. Boldly go where no man has gone before. Just give it a try and see what happens. Those brands who DO will be recognized AND will learn and adapt faster the the new world paradigms than others!
WHERE TO START?
1. One way to go about it, is to put dedicated resources behind one or more of these, just to not confuse it with your core capabilities, beliefs and processes…
SEEDING-MONEY
Dedicating 5% of your marketing A&M to new marketing can go a long way. 10% even more, and the risk of that not doing what it needs to do in the first year as you discover and learn the tricks in the new world, isn’t going to be a make or break.
SEEDING-JOBS
Why not create one or two evangelists in the company? A digital marketing strategy role. An experience marketing role. An engagement marketing role. A videographer. A designer. A partnership manager. You name it. Worth every penny.
2.Ultimately, you’ll have to find a way to start educating the organization about the future. Because whether you like it or not, whether you “believe” or not, new marketing techniques are here to stay. Social media needs to become a core skill for the organisation. Even more so, they will largely replace current tools to reach and interact with consumers. Make an education plan. Talk to the Facebook/Yahoo/Google/Twitter guys, and get them in! They will gladly help take your organization to the next level. You are the future of their business!
3. Buy, read about, and implement a social media ecosystem in what my colleague Shiv Singh talks about in his book “Social Media Marketing For Dummies“. See Amazon.
4. Grow a pair! Seriously. You can debate about the value of the new world order until Kingdom come, but in the mean time you’re just waisting time. Just stick your neck out. Go out there.
Source: http://www.iab.net/media/file/JEGIIABSocialMediaReport.pdf
Guess what? Leaning forward might actually get you disproportionate results. For a minimum investment, you will yield greater results on engagement for your brands than staying with your ‘old’ marketing. Watch your “earned media” increase! Witness your brand advocacy jump. See what “amplifaction” can do to your existing media approach. Learn about the importance of referral marketing and what you gain by being buzzworthy so your consumers do the marketing job for you! There are enough best practices around for your to copy in some shape or form, from very simple to a bit more sophisticated. Reverse engineer a strategy that you think might fit your brand as well, and implement it. It’ll work! That’s why I’m calling that intersection “get more than expected”.
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Thank you once more for stopping by,
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article, Kurt. I left you an email message regarding reprinting this blog in a magazine. Could you check it and respond? Thanks!
Nice one!
[write up of a point I made in a discussion around how far you should go with social media]: I often use the phrase “tv is dead” …but that is to make a point. Moving to digital only is suicidal. Having message distribution across channels, strong listening systems, and proper 360 engagement is the way to go for a brand. I have agreed earlier on that in light of that digital needs to become part of mainstream marketing. The why is simple: there is good complementarity, for certain targetgroups, at certain times, and when deployed in the right way. And I do agree with you on the numbers/metrics/kpi’s …that’s an industry issue that needs to be worked through quickly. The onus is on google, yahoo, facebook, youtube to prove their added value; quickly.