Marketing (non digital) has been around for at least 100 years, the 4 ps and all that. The Michelin guide is a great example of content marketing.
"Mad Men" in the 1930s worked out that the buyer wasn't very sophisticated and if you presented your product (so interrupted somebody) and told them about your features and functions enough times they would buy it.
The more you spent on advertising the more money you made.
This model worked and worked.
Digital Marketing is no different, but we use digital technology (Martech) to interrupt people more often. Marketing automation is just a tool to machine gun more and more email accounts.
There is a problem with this. The buyer is no longer stupid. The other problem we are pissed off with this.
I hear today that Microsoft, LinkedIn's owner has announced a move to send us more adverts on a social network. So they are going to use 1930 advertising on a social network. Let's not forget advertising isn't social, it's advertising. Just the same the adverts around a football game are adverts, it does not mean you are playing the football game.
So we all thought Digital Marketing would last "forever", problem it's over already.
Nobody reads adverts and ad-blocker technology is growing at 30% year-on-year.
GDPR pretty much killed off email marketing, and we all have pretty good AI nowadays that moves the spam to junk.
Events have just become sales pitches.
Web browers enable me to search the web in stealth mode so I can avoid all those irritating "remarket" ads.
Cold calling stopped working two years ago, and everybody knows that the people who cold call don't have enough leads and meetings. Or why would you do it? Desperate actions from a company that is out of ideas.
So where can a company go?
Well there is something that everybody does, all your prospects, all your customers. They communicate in a natural and frictionless way on social media.
Now, please, this does not mean take your analogue ways and stuff social media with your corporate content and adverts. Nobody is interested and we also all know that we are better than that. We can block you anyway. :)
Build relationships, engage, inspire, educate .... look at the betting companies, they make people laugh!
Empower your staff to talk about your products and services, not in a corporate boastful way but in an authentic, friendly way.
I'll let you into a secret. The only thing your company has that differentiates it is it's people. Empowering your people to blog and talk to their friends and family will pay dividends.
Digital marketing, like every other form of marketing, is in constant change. The days of leaning on print magazines or billboards for business advertisements, thinking they alone could generate enough buyers for a company to be successful, are gone.
