March 28, 2008

A unique view into the world of marketing

Marketing is the new sales. As trust in advertising erodes and trust in 'people like me' rises marketing becomes just like B2B sales -- who are the influencers of the sale and how do I satisfy their unique needs. So if your marketing to an online community hire an experienced enterprise software salesperson as part of the team.
The blind men and the elephant parable still rules, even 600 year later. Depending on your point of view you may describe something entirely different. Consider "Engagement" -- I've seen definitions ranging from using interactive tools like blogs and forums to identifying the optimum path to targeting based on behavior. As David Baker on Email Insider aptly put it -- "If I hear "send the right message at the right time to the right person" one more time, I'll take CRM out of my professional vocabulary." I agree, it is still talking to not and not with. (The other issue with this type of thinking is that it is all platform based.)
Gift cards continue to be the new black. $26 billion sold in the two months of last year. And with 25% going unused there's a lot of money there. Still no coordinated use as a marketing tactic.
If you ain't number one - get out of the kitchen. Motorola once the leader of the mobile phone business is considering an exit strategy. Falling behind Samsung and Nokia in the handheld sector -- what marketing blunders did they make? Did they adopt digital too late holding on to analog?
ESPN is the first major site to drop ad networks and go with a direct sales strategy. A couple of points: First, it is a rare publisher that can make this move because demand exceeds supply. Most publishers have a lot of inventory available. Second, the need to link advertisers and publishers when there are a bazillion options isn't going away. Third, the debate between the 'brand/premium' camp and the 'data rocks' camp is interesting to read but the ultimate objective should be measured results.
Trust in the car buying market is centered around those who describe themselves as very knowledgeable, no surprise there. What's surprising is the level of 'connectedness' among this group -- kind of a force field creating a 'birds of a feather' model. Six of ten knowledgeable people know other knowledgeable people; but only 1 in 5 non-influential's know some one knowledgeable. So the secret to marketing is to facilitate the conversation between the Non-Influential's and the Influential's.
From Twitter to TV. Joe Marchese of OnlineSPIN made a strong case for TV needing social media and social media needing TV. Pretty much it comes down to the content people watch TV for is the same stuff they like to mash up in social media. Don't make go to your site to find it under lock and key -- put it out where I want to play with it. Social Media is to TV as search is to direct response; the former is about content discovery while the latter is about information discovery.