Marketing ROI – wake up people!
Traditional media is dying – wake up people, and smell the coffee. Magazine advertising and old fashioned PR? Not for me and it shouldn’t be for you either. Unless:
- You would like to burn money
- You don’t want to track your ROI
- You don’t want to engage your customers
- You don’t want to give your customers value
- You want to go down the easy route where you can pick up a phone and place an ad
- You are stuck in the past and too damn lazy to do something about it!
So, wake up. Smell the coffee. Watch this video from Gary Vaynerchuck.
Marketing Has Changed
Marketing is changing. Consumers are savvy, and bored. They want the ability to talk and express how they feel about products and brands and services.
Awareness doesn’t mean nothing guys n’ gals. I’m aware of plenty of things, but I don’t like them or buy them.
Traditional PR is dead – one inch of coverage in a maagzine. Whoopy do. Well done.
I think this video sums it up nicely.
Superb Experience Marketing from method
Superb Experience Marketing from method, originally uploaded by JonnyMoss.
method is one if my fave brands. Top quality products with design not an afterthought, plus environmentally friendly.
Check out their latest blog post here – they created some little parks in parking spaces to highlight the need for green spaces in the urban jungles. Great fun and a great idea.
Method’s Marketing
I mentioned Tom Fishburne in a previous post, but I’ve just had the chance to properly read his Q&A over on Church of the Customer – it is well worth reading. Some very interesting insight into Method’s marketing.
Having a group of people who are your raving fans, evangelists, or whatever you want to call them works VERY well in our world right now. Any form of communication (good and bad) is amplified x1000 with the power of the web.
Baacode
Stand out. Do something different. Be remarkable. Make your customers smile 
Icebreaker, one of my fave clothing brands, just did this with their new baacode system.
Your unique Baacode will let you see the living conditions of the high country sheep that produced the merino fibre in your Icebreaker garment, meet the farmers who are custodians of this astonishing landscape, and follow every step of the supply chain. We’re sure you’ll find the experience as inspiring as we do. Enjoy your journey back to the source.
What a great story – completely immersive, UNIQUE, fun, yet with a very serious message. All you do, is look for your baacode on your item of clothing, and tap it in on the site:
Now, we’ve got a few items of Icebreaker Merino clothes and it’s true, they are the best out there (along with howies merino stuff). Unfortunately, none have baacodes, but you can click for a demo, and you should – it tells a wonderful story about the people farming the sheep, the location and the history.
This is a perfect example of doing some original and well-executed marketing. If your reading this Icebreaker, a big well done. Made me smile
Connection and Interaction
I’m betting that, right now, you have quite a few tabs open on your browser. (From my analytics data, you are probably using Firefox 3 or Safari 3). I’m exactly the same as you. Loads of tabs open and using FF 3.
The reason I mention this is down to a tab that I have had open for a week or so now, something that has really stood out from the rest of the material I consume online. It’s this post from Seth Godin on his blog.
Seth talks about that the 4 P’s of marketing have actually been replaced by these building blocks on the left here.
Data and stories, interactions and products, and finally connection. I am a huge fan of interaction and connection, products is obvious, but data and stories also ring true.
Something that applies to me, just as well as you, is this. Sit down, look in the mirror and ask yourself if you are encouraging interaction and connection with your customers today, and the customers of tomorrow. Seth quite rightly states that if anything you are doing doesn’t do this, then whay are you doing it?
The web provides such an easy, repeatable format for connection and interaction, one that we could not possibly imagine 10 years ago. The constantly shifting and evolving power of the web, means that online communication / connection / interaction is going to touch more and more people.
One word which Seth didn’t mention, but fits in well with the 5 elements he did, is personalisation. People want a personal experience. They increasingly want information, communication, products and connection which is suited to them and them only. Their habits, likes, preferences, whatever you want to call it. Just make it personal – if you as a marketeer or sales person can communicate, interact and connect by being really truly personal and meaningful, you will be successful.
