First things first, thank you to Mila for publishing me on her site.
Guest Author
Jeremy Powers
http://WindingStairCaseLLC.com
After nearly a decade of branding and marketing for large companies, Jeremy is now Principal at Winding Staircase, where he wants to help you with marketing your company.
10 Falsehoods Worth Reviewing
Before we get into Marketing 201, let’s dispense with 10 falsehoods about Social Media.
- Social media is not free.
- Your prospects, customers, and advocates do not consider themselves “in a relationship” with you.
- Web marketing is not free.
- Klout does not measure influence.
- Your time is not free.
- A brand style guide does not make a brand.
- Your employees’ time is not free.
- You do not have a “personal brand;” you have a reputation.
- Nothing you do is free; economics does not care about your worldview.
- New platforms do not require new messaging or new styles.
As you have probably guessed, I am not your typical happy-go-lucky, everything-is-roses, the-world-is-so-much-better-now, kind of internet marketer. (“No kidding,” said my wife.) Starting or growing your business is not easier now than it was twenty years ago.
The fundamentals of marketing have not changed. Business is still difficult, fun, painful, risky and rewarding.
What is marketing?
This is not a 101 level discussion, but we should take a moment to review what marketing is:
Marketing – the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. (American Marketing Association, October 2007)
Read that again, more slowly this time. Read it once more, and this time, consider why the largest businesses in the world are all “marketing-centric.”
Let’s break the definition down into the core components:
- Activity / process – Marketing is not a function, it is an ongoing process. Marketing is not an expense; it is a discipline.
- Creating – Marketing is a process where products or services originate.
- Communicating – These new products or services are then displayed (advertised) to the intended recipient.
- Delivering – An often overlooked aspect of marketing, quality execution is at the heart of the discipline.
- Exchanging – While most marketing involves an exchange of a product for money, sometimes marketing is an exchange for information, access, or relevance.
- Valuable offerings – If an exchange is to take place, what you have must be worth what you are asking for.
- Stakeholders – An exchange requires two parties. Your marketing efforts involve you and at least one other stakeholder.
All marketing requires investment
Stop. I see what you are thinking about. You are still equating “marketing” with “communicating” or “advertising.” Go back and review what marketing is again. Part of marketing is communicating, but that is just one of the four verbs used in the definition. Regardless, all marketing, including communicating, requires an investment.
In life, you have resources: time, money, and aptitude. How you allocate these resources to your business marketing should be carefully considered.
Where “the web” fits in
The internet can be used to facilitate the different actions of marketing: creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging. You are not unique in having access to the internet, and therefore, the World Wide Web does not give you an advantage. Instead, the internet requires you to become familiar with an entire realm of new sources of information, competition, and speed.
The internet has not simplified nor accelerated business. It has not changed the fundamentals of marketing. It has changed, however, the relative importance of different skill sets. For example, the salesperson who types with two fingers is at a sudden disadvantage.
What do you think?
I know this site is devoured by lots of communications and social media folks. So, as a late introduction, my marketing background, until two years ago, has been entirely in consumer products. (That is, I market products to retailers, who then market them to consumers with my support.)
I am curious what those of you that have been “on the front lines” of consumer interaction for several years think.
Has the web changed marketing in any fundamental way?
What tactics or strategies do you see are changing more quickly?
I look forward to your comments.
jpjeremy First, great post. In my post Medieval Marketing: master the basic marketing concepts before Social Media http://bit.ly/MedievalMarketing I implore people to take a step back, maybe to Marketing 001 before considering Social Media. Am very interested in hearing what ken_rosen , samfiorella and chieflemonhead have to say about your post…
What I believe the Web has done, and Social Media in particular, is to redefine the type of communications that Marketers need to craft. For the first time in a long time there s real time or near real time feedback. The marketing communications are now multi-directional as opposed to Broadcast TV, Broadcast radio, Broadcast Billboards, Broadcast Fliers, you get the point…. This has and will continue to change marketing. Most obvious to me is that our targets are increasing micro-segmented and “it seems like a lot of work” to go find them and engage them. With that said, I believe it is easier and more cost effective in the long run to do just that…
But, let;s start the conversation, and see what some smart people have to say about it…. 🙂
best – Josepf
@Josepf I had hoped by posting on @Milaspage ‘s site I would get some credible feedback! Thanks for the comment.
Business has promoted via one-way communication vehicles for a long time. However, strong companies have always listened to their customers.
The biggest change I see in the communication loop between providers and customers is the public nature of the feedback from customers.
From my point of view your assertion is true, and false. And I’m afraid to say, more false than true. If your message is “don’t forget the basics”, then fair enough, but then you only need say that, and you need to consider your audience. Maybe your intended audience is Marketing 201 and then you have the basis of some useful education, but also some misleading advice, which I’ll come to now.
My negative feelings are epitomized by this statement: “The internet has not simplified nor accelerated business. It has not changed the fundamentals of marketing. It has changed, however, the relative importance of different skill sets. For example, the salesperson who types with two fingers is at a sudden disadvantage.”
Those assertions are just not true on so many levels, and the example trivializes the point. The CONCEPT of the role of marketing hasn’t changed, which is a key point you make. And arguing whether it has or hasn’t is simply an academic exercise. But everything else, thinking Strategy, Objectives, Plans, Actions, Measuring, Mindshare, Timing, Advocacy etc etc has changed, dramatically.
The trouble with saying that nothing has changed is that it gives the Laggards false hope, which could prove fatal by putting them out of business, and it delays or confuses the Early Majority – which might put me out of business!!
I equate this to the “cloud” arguments, with many saying “cloud is nothing new” “it’s just Hotmail” “it’s just Marketing coming up with new jargon” etc. When you look into that you see most of it is propagated by vendors with a self-interest in saying it is nothing new. The fact is that it is new, it is “business transformational” and for the laggards who fall for the “nothing new” line they may face sudden extinction.
Social media is equally transformational for Marketing, and for every one of those components that you describe as the key processes of Marketing. To say that its not changed much plays into the mindset of those who desperately want to believe that. And, to my mind, that’s unfortunate.
It’s unfortunate because one of the biggest battles in getting organisations to understand the transformational power of social media, and the nature of social business, is their mindset. I’m not saying that we should resort to FUD – fear, uncertainty, and doubt, which is another part of the cloud story – but we should be careful not to offer false comfort.
Walter @adamson
igo2 Group
@adamson igo2 Thank you for your excellent comments. My blog is about perspectives, thank you so much for sharing yours here!
I think this post definitely can be interpreted a few ways, but at its core, when I read it, I think about people who jump into social media, or stay away from social media – both cases – thinking its like some whole new thing. Its not something new, its simply a new way for us to be able to access populations and achieve more.
The introduction of Social Media in our world has certainly changed everything, from who we can reach, to the relationship factor, which was not even a possibility before social.
You couldn’t have a conversation in a newspaper advertisement- right?
So on this level EVERYTHING has changed, yet it doesn’t mean we throw out all our marketing basis because we are doing something “new” – from a marketing standpoint, we are doing exactly the same thing – we just need to learn how to use new tools.
It is easy for people to get distracted and think, “hey this is social media, I’m just going to start talking to people and this will be my new marketing” I think this is the point of this post.
No, Social media is not replacing marketing principles, what it is doing is allowing a marriage between Public Relations, Customer Service and Marketing. That’s the balance Social media users need to find. To measure results, to understand the ROI, people need to have a reality check, there’s an investment of time (time=money) – If your purpose in being in the social area is to sell, then you still need to remember your marketing basics-they don’t fly out the window… To take it further, you then need to align all your departments (Marketing, PR, Customer Service), and determine how you will measure- so the message is consistent and you can see results.
Social Media has challenged us, has definitely changed the world (and one major reason I am organizing the #140confMontreal is to share this message) Everything has changed – and opportunity is greater than before! But you must have the strategy and foundation behind it, when speaking of business and marketing directives.
So when jpjeremy suggests nothing has changed, the way I view it is: The basis of marketing at its core is the same. If you go into Social media and forget the basics of marketing, or operate completely separate (in the cases of organizations who have people doing marketing efforts, and departments now doing Social media efforts) or THINK there is no tie in between the two, then you will have a very hard time seeing success.
The Social media strategy has to tie in with the existing marketing efforts (all the while respecting the core values of the company and objectives) , Marketing & all corporate departments have to integrate new media into the overall corporate strategy for a untied approach using old school strategy and basics, with new tools that will expand reach and interaction on many levels.
@Milaspage I should point out, my marketing experience is almost exclusively American. I can see a “revolutionary’ argument for social media in geographies where communication has traditionally been much more controlled. As an example, you need look no further than Egypt.
@adamson I think we will end up “agreeing to disagree,” but I am hungry for concrete examples.
“everything else, thinking Strategy, Objectives, Plans, Actions, Measuring, Mindshare, Timing, Advocacy etc etc has changed, dramatically.”
Strategy – In CPG, at least, the strategy is essentially to find a marketplace, identify a product need for that marketplace, and fill that need. I don’t see that changing.
Objectives – the objective for most business marketing is to grow revenue and profit, as it has been for thousands of years.
Actions – Some changes here, but tactical shifts
Measuring – I don’t really see any change here. We have new acronyms for the same: reach, loyalty, position, etc
Mindshare – Marketers have been measuring and ranking brand awareness for a long time now.
Timing – You might have something here, but in big CPG, retailers are still resetting planograms once a year, unless the POG is a seasonal set.
Advocacy – Not sure about this one. My experience with non-profit fundraising indicates that the biggest bang in fundraising still comes from having powerful corporate connections.
Perhaps we are operating in different environments?
Jeremy,
Thanks to @Josepf for giving me a heads up to your post. At the most basic level, I agree with you that what is truly important about Marketing does not change with the environment changes. On the face of it, this seems in line with you and at odds with @adamson . But the truth is, I see this more a litmus test of personality than a particular point of view about Marketing. That is, some folks see everything as the same…except where it is different. I’m one of those. Others (including one of partners whom I respect as much as any business person I’ve known) see everything as different…except where it’s the same. Tactically, I’ll bet you, @adamson , and I could happily agree on a strategy…only two of us would call it a special case of what we’ve been doing for years and one would note how it is a revolutionary approach.
Just my two cents.
But your post also points to something I’ve found incredible in my social media interactions: the vast majority of people I run into see Marketing as a promotion.
I’d expect this of folks who live in entirely different fields. But I often hang out where Marketers hang out. And THEY even seem to equate Marketing exclusively with promotion, communications, and lead generation. I’m not actually clear on who they think examines market dynamics, selects target audiences, dissects customer cravings and fears, defines products, pricing, and business models, specifies appropriate channel and OEM partners, etc.
It has been an eye-opener for me. Thanks for bringing this to light.
Ken
Performance Works
@ken_rosen Honestly, the biggest advantage of Social Media, to the small businesses I see leveraging it well, seems to be coming from the knowledge they are gaining.
That is, promotion on social seems to be of less impact than research.
Thoughts?