Marketing is changing–are you?
By Mike Moran. Filed in Internet Marketing, Monthly Newsletter |Tags: Internet marketing
Image by voyageAnatolia.blogspot.com via Flickr
If you’ve ever watched a storm coming over the horizon, you’ll be right at home with the changes that are happening in marketing. Everywhere you look, marketing is undergoing changes. If you have the new skills required, it should be a smooth ride for you, but if you don’t, you might be in for a rocky ride. Read on to see what changes are coming and what you need to know to make a smooth adjustment to where marketing is headed.
Four big areas head the list of marketing changes. Each one is an example of how you’ll need to broaden your skills:
- More technology. No, you don’t need to become an iPhone apps developer, but you definitely need to become comfortable with working with technologists—directing them. Avi Dan believes that CMOs need to appoint a marketing technology czar. Regardless of the solution, it’s clear that every year will send a nw technology to cope with. Web sites yielded e-Commerce which begat search marketing that morphed into social media. If you understood Facebook and then Twitter, now you need to know Foursquare. If you figured out e-mail to the Blackberry, then iPhone apps were next. And now Android apps. Technology will continue to be a big driver of marketing’s future.
- More anthropology. Three university professors went Avi one better in a Wall Street Journal article, calling for the creation of a new role, marketing technopologist. That role includes a blend of marketing skills, technology ability, plus expertise in social interaction. When you think about how social media is built around communities, and further consider how central privacy is to online interactions, you could do worse than focus on how culture affects the way people interact online.
- More public relations. Traditional marketers have spent their lives crafting the exact messages they want to deliver, and then paying for them to be delivered. With social media, some marketers are flummoxed, because they don’t know how to craft a message that their customers will happily spend time with, and willingly pass on. PR pros to the rescue! Communications people have been solving that problem for media placement forever, so it behooves marketers to begin to adopt more of a PR approach. I found it interesting that IBM has merged its marketing and communications team under Jon Iwata, their longtime communications executive. Expect to see more of that.
- More metrics. Perhaps the most important skill marketers need is the one that has its roots in marketing itself—direct marketing. Direct marketers are really in the sales business, using metrics such as the response rate of everyone sent a catalog or other marketing message. Every sale is attributed to what caused it, allowing metrics-driven marketing to weed out the tactics that don’t pay off. Digital marketing is even easier to measure than offline direct marketing, so the pressure to optimize return on your online marketing investment has never been greater.
The smartest marketers are trying to expand their background in all four of these areas, but you can get by with just one. But beware of staying in that traditional marketing silo and not branching out at all. Most people will stay put, but the jobs out there require more than traditional marketing skills, so you are competing against more people for fewer jobs.
Tuesday, August 3rd 2010 at 12:50 pm |
Hi Mike -
Totally agree that marketing is changing along the four areas you mention. However, disagree with the notion you can get by with just one. Today’s marketing jackpot is won by those who understand how to integrate these new tools with each other and with traditional tactics.
Marc Engelsman
Wednesday, August 4th 2010 at 9:19 am |
The picture is beautiful and let us relax, but the topic is not.
Thursday, August 5th 2010 at 12:21 pm |
I am a firm believer in being well versed in all four of those areas, it will only make you a more effective marketing professional. It will allow you to offer that much more value for your clients. Sure marketing is ever changing, but once you get your feet wet and learn areas such as the social media market, it’s not so bad!
Friday, August 6th 2010 at 7:13 am |
Technology changes day by day and brings new innovations in every field. We should keep updated with it…
Saturday, August 7th 2010 at 12:41 am |
Hi Marc,
We can agree to disagree. I am not saying that the best marketers have just one other skill in addition to marketing, but I know many people that indeed “get by” this way. My recommendation is to learn as much as you can about all four, but for those marketers stuck with none of those skills, that might seem a bit overwhelming. And I think they can certainly start with one at a time.
I understand that you might feel differently–thanks for chiming in.
Wednesday, August 11th 2010 at 9:08 am |
As they say, “the only thing permanent in this world is change,” that’s why marketers shouldn’t be left behind and go with the times. It’s a competitive world out there and the only way to stay on top is to adapt to the changes both in marketing and in real life.
Saturday, August 14th 2010 at 5:24 pm |
I agree with Ian. You have to go with the flow, dance with the music to be able to stay with the world you’re dealing with.
Sunday, August 15th 2010 at 4:28 pm |
I strongly believe that marketing is changing because this generation quite different to old and previous marketing. Now, we have advance technology evolved in and its very competitive.
angeluisa
Saturday, August 21st 2010 at 1:04 pm |
Interesting blog. I’m always on the lookout for articles and info on marketing and the like, and as online marketing is so difficult these days, your blog looks a pretty good resource.
Wednesday, August 25th 2010 at 7:04 am |
Very good article. Without getting into any details summarizes the new marketing environment. Public relations in a technology environment might be the short description. :)
Monday, September 13th 2010 at 4:33 pm |
Hi Mike,
Great blog post. I agree, the worlds of PR and marketing, technology and communications are certainly meshing together.
Though some may feel overwhelmed and should start by taking on one avenue at a time, in today’s online world once you get into expanding your involvement with one, the rest just comes naturally.
I also believe that marketing/pr is become less and less about “crafting” a message and more and more about being real and interacting with the conversation that’s already there.
The consumer, the viewer, the target market, they know what they want. Social media has made our lives as marketers that much easier. Rather than strategizing and reading people’s minds, the answer is in the conversation already being had online. No more guess work. Just real people, having real conversations.
Cheers.
Misha
Friday, November 5th 2010 at 12:59 am |
Hi Mike
I agree with your comments. Quite independently I recently published an article which reached roughly similar conclusions about technology and ‘earned’ communications, although my typology of specific changes is a little different. I arrived at five marketing changes:
Data
Access
Interconnected Consumers
Sustainability
Supply-side
You’re point (picked up in the comments above) about marketers getting “overwhelmed” is very accurate and something I’ve witnessed frequently (although the sufferers frequently deny it). Whether marketers should start with a single point or try to tackle all at once is a matter of approach – at the end of the day, a good marketer needs to have a strong sense of the shifts in all of these areas.
Thanks for the post. My article is at http://icio.us/g3n4kk