Marketing as We Know it is Dead
I made two new friends last week at a christmas party. One of them, Brenda, is a self employed life coach, and the other, Sandra, makes bespoke luxury kitchens. Both are passionate about what they do, so naturally the conversation eventually ended up about business.
Like many of their peers, they have joined and regularly attended networking events and business networking groups. Their main lead generation tactic was inviting anyone remotely interested for a free consultation session or product demo and then hope that they buy afterwards. Sadly few of them ever did, because “they couldn’t afford it”. They had been running their “businesses” at a loss for the last 8+ months.
They have both tried “everything” – yellow pages, promotions, press releases, print ads, brochures/leaflets, cold calling, open house, door knocking, and even turning their cars into advertising tools. Still, they weren’t getting enough leads or paying customers.
They both didn’t know what to do anymore.
“Well, have you tried marketing online?”I asked them.
Blink, blink.
They just stared at me as if I just said something gibberish – in Urdu.
More and more businesses and solo professionals are now experiencing first hand that what used to be very effective lead generating tactics do not work very well anymore. Brenda and Sandra are not alone.
Consumers now do all sorts of measures to block out all the noise that barrage them day in and day out. We mute the radio or TV or switch between channels when the advertisements come on. We’re rude to cold callers and door knocking salespeople. We ignore print ads, and even if we do, few of us really believe what they say anyway. We accept leaflets and brochures when they are being handed out just to be polite, only to stash them in the nearest bin we see.
Marketing as we know it is as good as dead.
Marketing (as in old marketing) – no longer works, not because the media themselves are no longer effective, but because consumers have changed.
Consumers Are Changing
Consumers are a lot busier and more impatient so their attention span is extremely short (and expensive!).
They’re so jaded that they no longer believe us (salesmen or marketers) – they’d rather ask their next door neighbor, friends or pets what they think about our products (how dare they!).
They’re getting more and more savvy. They know that someone, somewhere has got what they want at a price they are happy to pay for. More and more of them know where and how to get the information they want at the exact time that they need them. Thus they are quick to dismiss messages that are irrelevant to their current train of thought (dammit).
They are spoilt for choice so more and more of them are refusing to settle for mass-produced, mass-marketed, average goods. No – in fact, they demand remarkable products specifically tailored with their unique needs in mind that truly work for their specific situation, and they expect a fast, reliable impeccable service.
They even demand to know how you made your product, who made them, what materials were used, what your carbon footprint is like, who you do businss with and how, how you train your staff, where you came from, why you do what you do…
And if you piss them off, they make damn sure they tell everybody. And by everybody I mean their friends, ex girfriends, ex-boyfriends, family, neighbours, colleagues, pets, grandparents, the folks that used to bully them in kindergarten, the folks who they used to bully in high school, their old high school teachers - and these people in turn do the same and so on.
All that at one push of a button. One single click.
So What Now for Businesses?
Clearly, interrupting people and shouting our generic messages to as many people as possible and hope that enough of them buy our generic products no longer works.
What are marketers supposed to do?
Well, there is a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is:
- Target a specific group of people whose problems you can solve well. Join or build a community of these people. Listen to what they have to say. Engage, enthuse, empower and add value to them.
- Deliver messages for them that are compelling, relevant, valuable, useful, amazing, and if you dare, mind-blowingly cool. The trick is to give them what they want to become happier, better, richer, sexier, or whatever it is they want to be.
- Make it super easy, fun, and even rewarding for people to interact with you and ultimately to want to pass your message on to others.
- Rinse and repeat.
The long answer is well, basically the same answer, just err… longer. The long answer deals with the tactics and tools and details. And the long answer depends on who you ask and who exactly is asking and when and where the question was asked.
It’s so easy to get lost in the details and get all so fancy. It’s so easy to forget that at the end of the day the media you use per se doesn’t really matter – it’s the value of your message that matters, and how that message is changing the very people who hears it, not necessarily just the ones you crafted the message for.
Your Challenge as a Business Owner
The challenge we face today as marketers is not, “how do we get the most people to buy my product?” but “how do I really listen enough to people so that I am able to serve their needs?”
The challenge we face today is not, “how do we invent a story that will make more people buy?” but “how do we muster enough courage to tell our true story and still be able to create something of real value?”
Our real challenge is listening more to people, not shouting at people.
Our real challenge is creating something truly worthy to the people we hope to serve.
Our real challenge is about being authentic enough and being willing to connect and share as much value as we can with those we have chosen to serve.
If you can do all that and use the right tools in the appropriate and timely manner then you need not worry about making enough sales, because the market will find you.
And buy from you they will.
Top 18 Viral Promotional Videos of All Time
Page viewed 1128 times
By now we are familiar how powerful video marketing is. If your current promotional tactics aren’t working, it’s worth trying to create promotional videos designed to go viral. But what elements make a video viral?
Well, to spark your creative juices, I’ve compiled a list of viral promotional videos of all time. These are videos that were created not just purely for fun but to promote a product, a brand, an organization or a business. I only included those that received over over 1,000,000 views as counted by Viral Video Chart.
18.) Verizon Droid (1,868,559 views)
Advert for the new Motorola Droid smartphone.
17.) Sony Bravia Play-Doh (2,047,882 views)
This one is lost on me and I actually find it freaky. But apparently “over a period of 3 weeks, 189 bunnies, a 30ft giant rabbit, 150 cubes and on 10ft by 20ft purple wave, all expertly fashioned out of Playdoh, were taken to the streets of New York” to create this viral advert.
16.) 8-bit Stop Motion Trip With Legos (4, 593,284 views)
This video apparently took about 1500 hours of work. Wow.
15.) Sony Bravia Palline (4,655,835 views)
Sony successfully produced a viral ad by releasing thousands of small bright-coloured balls down a quiet street.
14.) Apple Macintosh 1984 Superbowl Commercial (5,167,289 views)
Funny how advertising has changed. Take a look at Apple’s first Macintosh computer. The product positioning is obvious- Apple is breaking the mould. Is it just me or the man on the big TV screen looks like Bill Gates?
13.) Will It Blend? iPhone Video (7,672,405 views)
Will it blend? Oh no not the iPhone! See Blendtec’s CEO Tom Dickinson’s latest experiment as he use his phenomenal blender to blitz the iPhone and turn it into a glass of smoky, black powder.
12.) Google Wave Presentation (8,086,221 views)
Google Wave Developer Preview presentation at the Day 2 Keynote of Google I/O. You think Google had a hand as to why this went viral?
11.) Cadbury Eyebrows (9,431,712 views)
Weirded me out, this one.
10.) Heineken Walk-In Fridge (9,449,813 views)
A parody that shows how extremely funny it is when men emulate stereotypical women’s behaviour.
9.) TheFunTheory.com’s Piano Staircase (10,914,552 views*)
www.thefuntheory.com is an initiative of Volkswagen. Notice how they cleverly positioned their brand by releasing a series of videos dedicated to the pursuit of injecting FUN into things we usually don’t like doing.
* the number of views pertains to the Swedish version, but I am displaying the English version here for obvious reasons.
08.) Samsung Extreme Sheep LED Art (11,285,333 views)
This video used Sheeps and LEDs to get their message across. Talk about Baaaa-d Ass Advertising.
07.) Durex Get It On (12,233,418 views)
Rubber like you’ve never seen it before. Never had rubber been so sexually hilarious.
06.) Gorilla Ad for Cadbury Dairy Milk (14,830,617 views)
Put together a chocolate, a gorilla, and drums and what do you get? A viral video that went on to becoming one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history.
05.) Playing For Change (16,347,589 views)
A great message from http://www.playingforchange.com
04.) T-Mobile Dance (20,109,212 views)
Watch the moment Liverpool Street Station danced to create this special T-Mobile Advert.
03.) Dove Evolution Ad (21,879,167 views)
Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ Campaign successfully demonstrates why it’s unrealistic for real women to attempt to look like the women they see in magazines.
02.) Obama Yes We Can (32,443,228 views)
Music video dedicated to the presidential campaign of senator Barack Obama.
01. Evian Live Young Baby Roller (33,791,618 views)
This is an ad by Evian. Presumably it went viral because they feature babies. There yah go – whatever promotional video you plan to make, just make sure you deliver your message using babies.