Here’s the tl;dr version of this post: Your cookie-cutter marketing ideas aren’t going to work any more.
Ha!
I don’t really know if I am going to need much more than that to make the point of this post, but I do figure you want a little more explanation.
So here we go:
Lately there has been a proliferation of different things popping up everywhere:
- In sports, tons of new subscriptions that are, in theory, modeled after Netflix because: NETFLIX!
- A bunch of articles talking about CEOs demanding performance from their CMOs: OMG! Stop the presses!
- Ads and marketing that is just so me too that it is all pointless, but built off of “insights” that are supposedly gathered from “Big Data” because: DATA!
All of this has opened the door to a pretty depressing state of affairs in our ability to market and sell products effectively and an increase in garbage, crap, and spam that is all veiled under the blanket term: marketing.
While all of this keeps happening, products, services, things…stuff keeps not happening.
In MLB, you have a nightly show of how much people have stopped caring about baseball and about how far behind the game is in its marketing efforts, despite what its revenue numbers say and despite what attendance is reported at.
In professional services, we see so many organizations shoveled into commodity type pricing and deals because of their inability to recognize and sell their own unique value.
In the everyday, we are inundated with more and more popup windows, undifferentiated emails, on and on.
All of this keeps feeding a never-ending cycle of stupidity that makes marketing and selling tougher and more effective.
But what can we do about cutting back on the cookie-cutter, meaningless garbage?
A lot actually.
We have to start by getting out of the idea that there is some universal formula for any one industry or type of product or service.
What works in one place may or may not work in another, but the idea that every play or musical sells the same should die.
Why?
Because everything isn’t the same.
Look at professional services.
I’m in the marketing and strategy business, but I could never compete against Ogilvy on fair footing because I’m a boutique firm and they are the biggest or one of the biggest marketing firms in the world. So to win business, I’ve had to differentiate myself.
I’m the Revenue Architect.
Pretty much says what we are going to talk about, right?
Would I tell my friend that is working in organizational development to do the same thing?
Absolutely not, it wouldn’t work.
There are some tenants that I would offer, but I wouldn’t tell anyone to recreate my system.
It wouldn’t work.
That’s the first key to getting off this roller coaster, understanding that even where industries and companies have many similarities…you are selling the differences, the unique value and at a point, that means being different.
Next, we have to stop trying to focus only on mass.
In the States, we have this idea that more is better.
More ads.
More soda.
More noise.
More of everything.
Unfortunately, that really isn’t the case.
Because more is only more. Especially when it comes to marketing and advertising.
When I worked in radio and have worked with really great radio people, they tell me that this myth that you need to allow saturation of ads, especially direct response ads, to work is just a bunch of bunk. If you have good ads and a good call to action, your response should start happening immediately.
You don’t need just more.
You just need more of the specific kind of stuff that works.
That’s usually a lot different than the stuff that is getting produced.
So focus on the specific and measure to see if you are getting a response. Because for most of us, direct response things are what we need and the impact should be immediate. Or pretty close.
Finally, do things that are specific to your buyers…not just because everyone is doing them.
If you have sat in on my 3 strategy questions rant before, sorry. Here it comes again.
To be a successful strategist, you need to ask and answer 3 questions:
- What’s the value we want to create?
- Who can use it and will pay for it?
- How do I reach them?
It is the third question where the train can easily go off the rails because so many platforms and fads sound great as tools to reach our audiences.
I’ve used the example that if you ever see me creating a business Pinterest page, call the mental hospital because its never going to be for my audience.
Just not the audience I target.
Never, ever will.
But too many industries and organizations are seduced by the notion that they need to be everywhere.
I had a CMO tell me a few months back that his day is consumed by keeping up with all the new technologies.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes to myself because that’s just not how it should be.
You need to know about new technologies, yes.
But if your day is consumed by finding and learning about new technologies, you are really a tactician and not a strategist because if you really know your market, you realize that most of the time most buyers aren’t bleeding edge, they may be cutting edge, but usually they are in the middle somewhere.
Which means that in many cases, when you are trying to market to people, you should be focusing on mature means that are going to bear fruits.
Not trying to do everything and be everything.
Strangely enough, this CMO is not the CMO anymore.
I’m through ranting now.