I got a great comment from my friend Jill Manty regarding my post on agencies and Social Media boutiques. Her experience is different from mine in that she comes from the digital agency side of things. Her experience has been that “traditional” agencies are completely unprepared to build bridges with a digital agency. They don’t know how to work online. Some of them haven’t even had websites. Jill rightly asked how one could build a bridge or a cooperative relationship with an agency that is so under-prepared and so behind the times.
It’s a pretty good question, and one that represents things about the current state of marketing world that really make me sad. It all goes back to issues I’ve blogged about before – isolation, a lack of integration, head in the sand type marketing. The works. We can’t build bridges if some of us are building out of toothpicks and others of us are using steel.
Jill’s question made me realize that there are a lot of questions, related questions, that might be floating through peoples’ minds as they ponder Marketing Version 2011. So I thought I would shoot out some questions and then, being completely narcissistic, I’d also offer my answers. But of course, each answer is up for debate! All of these questions, and more, answer Jill’s question. Or at least, that is the intent.
So here we go.
1. What is Marketing? When I use the word marketing, I am using it to refer to any methodology of product or service promotion. Now back in the day, this was pretty much commercial advertising and press releases. These days the world has gotten a lot more complex. Are white papers marketing? Sure. Are websites marketing? Yep. Is Social Media marketing? You betcha.
2. Who Owns Social Media? I saw this question all throughout 2010. “Doesn’t PR own Social Media?” “I thought customer service owned Social Media.” “No no no, Social Media is clearly the territory for marketers.” Well, given my definition of marketing, these questions simply don’t make sense to me. In point of fact, asking who owns Social Media is like asking, “Who owns the concept of the screw driver? Is it just for carpenters?” Social Media is a tool. It can absolutely be invaluable to PR, marketers, content developers, and teenagers, too.
3. Isn’t Social Media a fad? It seems like some agencies, like the one Jill works with, are still burying their heads in the sand a bit when it comes to Social Media. “No, no, it’s not happening. It’s not the same as a print ad. We only do print ads.” Now if you say, “Twitter is a fad,” or “Facebook is a fad,” I might be more likely to give the question some thought. Lots of tools run their course and then kind of fizzle out. Then again, we were all laughing about the passage of MySpace a couple of months ago and now it seems to be redefining itself. Hmm. What can agencies learn from MySpace? The times are changing. You should change too. That doesn’t mean you need to change into something that’s dead, though.
4. How do I measure marketing success now? One particularly sad thing about traditional agencies who are burying their heads in the sand is that they are missing immense opportunities to make their efforts quantifiable. When I first started as a media buyer 6 year ago, a lot of magazines had little “bingo cards” at the end. People would go through and select products and/or companies that interested them. Companies would then receive these cards and could say, “Hey, we got x number of leads from this magazine.” It was tangible. As print started to mix with other marketing channels, the bingo cards went by the wayside, and agencies and advertisers were left with the feeling that their advertising dollars were being sent into the Gulf with the disappearing oil. Now, though, there are lots of new and exciting ways to bring quantification back. But you have to be willing to try new things. You have to be able to integrate web development, web analytics, maybe QR codes, and other new measurement tools. The possibilities are really exciting in this realm, though.
5. What is the ROI of Social Media? This is a very general question that you see a lot. My pat answer for 2011 is going to be a question in return. Actually, two questions. What is your objective? Question two: what are you investing? The phrase “Return on investment” all kind of runs together now, and I think people don’t really weigh what it means. Return. on. Investment. If you are not investing anything in your Social Media efforts, you can’t really expect a return, right? Similarly, if you don’t know what you want your “return” to be, it’s going to be hard to wager what a “good” ROI would be for a Social Media campaign. Answer these 2 questions first, then we can talk about what your ROI is.
6. Isn’t B2B the wrong fit for…xyz? There was a lot of buzz in early December because Rick Segal, speaking at the B2B European Conference in Berlin, declared that B2B marketing was “obsolete.” I’ve already said my piece about phrases I’m hoping not to hear in 2011 – “is dead” is one of them. Obsolete is close enough. The fact of the matter is that B2B companies can use any marketing channel that a B2C company can use. It just needs to be thought of in a slightly different way. Instead of thinking just about an end-user, a B2B company may need to incorporate a sales force or a distributor network – or both. But that’s just an additional step, it’s not the gallows. The only new trend in marketing that I think might be a bit rough for *some* B2B companies is geo-location technology. You’re not going to wander by a manufacturer of auto parts and say “Oh, I think I’ll check in here to get a discount.” Most likely. You never know.
7. Is advertising dead? Like many things, advertising is not dead. I would even go out on a limb and say it’s not dying. It’s evolving. It’s changing. Agencies and advertisers need to make an adjustment to a world where advertising is a two-way communication system. I foresee an increase in interactive aspects like QR codes or “submit a video or a picture” or something like that. I see Social Media being integrated more into traditional advertising campaigns so that Social Media can remain ad-free while ads can do the selling.
8. Do I need to learn about that? I hope I don’t hear this question too often in 2011. I certainly am approaching this year as a time when I will try to learn everything I can about everything. That means if there are changes in SEO – I want to know about it. If there are changes in print advertising trends, I want to be ahead of the curve. If mobile suddenly peters out into nothingness because the Martians bring us mind control hats, I want to know all about that. I firmly believe that if you want to be a strong and efficient marketer in this decade/century/year, you need to be able to speak semi-intelligently about everything your client could need.
9. Don’t I need an expert? I think there is a growing distrust of the “expert.” At least experts who call themselves experts. First of all, there are too many areas where you can have experts now. I’m waiting to see who the golden child of the iPad application will be, or the Super Ninja of Groupon Marketing. Maybe they are already out there. In any case, categories of marketing are becoming more niche and more deep, and often more isolated, too. If you are an agency, digital or “traditional,” or if you are a marketing consultant – get thee to a position of being a hub (boy, “get thee to a nunnery” flows a lot better. Good call, Shakespeare). Gather experts around you and to you so that together, you can offer expertise on any subject. An expert in just one area is not going to be enough.
10. Isn’t PR/Customer Service/Content/Advertising/Social Media more important than marketing? Given my definition of marketing and how I work in the marketing world via our agency, you might sympathize with me when I say, “Uh…what?” I truly don’t understand this question. No matter what the specifics are. If you are doing things in what I believe is the “right way,” for what it’s worth, all of these things ARE marketing. Asking if PR is more important than marketing is like asking me, “Don’t you think the foundation of a house is more important than the whole house?” No, I kind of like the whole thing. Big picture kind of deal. Whole enchilada.
What would your question number 11 be? What would your answer be? Or would you like to shoot out a question 11 and see how others respond to it?
Or, maybe you’d like to take issue with one of my questions or answers. That’s fine too.
I’d love to hear from you.