The 6p call that interrupts your family dinner to sell you a timeshare apartment when your ideal vacation is to pitch a tent, go hiking and catch your dinner in the nearby stream – is equally frustrating and irrelevant.
What about the glossy cardboard mailout you receive in the mail selling carpet steam cleaning when you have timber floorboards? That ends up straight in the trash.
From a marketing perspective both of these old, and interruptive marketing tactics are expensive, poorly targeted with a relatively low return on investment.
Technology; mobile, internet and social media have significantly increased the amount of information we digest on a daily basis. As a result we're evolving from reading to scanning, and filtering out irrelevant messages. When we need to research a particular product or service we turn to the internet; Google search, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or LinkedIn.
So my question is, as a marketer don’t you want to your company, your product and/or your service to be found, when your target audience is searching? And not the competition!
As a forward thinking marketer think about what your target market will be doing in 5 or 10 years from now. People in their thirties don’t know a working life without the internet. Anyone younger probably can’t remember life without the internet and young children who are now say 10 years old will be an adult in another 10 years and won’t know a life without mobile devices and social media.
So what does this mean for the future of marketing – where is it heading?
Given the widespread use of mobile devices and information overload – marketers need to get better at identifying their market, what their market is searching for, and how they help. Marketers need to get a lot better at publishing content that is optimized for mobile devices and of value to their audience, targeted messages that are both relevant and timely.
No longer can marketers expect to achieve their marketing and lead goals based on poorly targeted messages. It’s too expensive. It damages brands. It generates low volume of leads, or poor lead quality. Now is the time for marketers to start publishing content that people love.
We realize the rapid adoption of online, social and mobile technology means companies need to adapt, and quickly. And often this is unrealistic for small to mid size companies – even those that have a marketing or sales manager. It’s a lot for one person to stay up to date with, and employing a team of specialists doesn’t make financial sense. That is where we can help. We’ll become a seamless extension to your marketing or sales team – helping you look good. We'll show you how to, or implement and mange for you, sustainable marketing practices that will build your brand on trust, credibility and thought leadership, helping you to achieve your lead and customer goals.
Photo credit: Hubspot Thank you I love this image, and love your initiative to improve marketing.
