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1. Déjà New Marketing
“This is like déjà vu all over again.”
Yogi Berra (1925 – present) Professional Baseball Player
Déjà Vu. Do you ever get the feeling that you have experienced something before, but you are not sure what to do about it?
If you are like me, it happens a lot. This happens when I confront a familiar marketing problem or opportunity. While I may have experienced or witnessed a similar marketing challenge before, my previous responses or reactions just don’t seem to work so well any more. For whatever reason, new marketing solutions are needed if I am to remain competitive, let alone meet the challenge. I call this phenomenon “Déjà New Marketing”.
For example, a proven promotional method for many businesses is print advertising. Traditionally, print advertising has been an effective tool and one that virtually all marketing executives and entrepreneurs understood. You know the drill. You place the ad in the newspaper, directory, or magazine, and then you wait for the customers to respond. You pay the bill and hopefully you get rewarded.
Sadly, print advertising is becoming less and less effective in the new millennium. Driven by the pervasiveness of the web, print advertising is quickly losing its grip on the customer. While I feel pity for my friends in the print advertising business, as a buyer of print advertising it is clear that the web has quickly become a more efficient and cost effective channel to get your message out to your customer. This stunning change in print advertising revenues and effectiveness is only one example.
Consider the recent changes in selling goods and services. For the last 100 years, salespeople have used face-to-face presentations and the telephone to build relationships and push products. During the last decade, customer purchasing behavior has dramatically changed. It’s as if customers have gone into hiding!
Today, personal selling often seems reduced to e-mail and voicemail with a customer who no longer has the time or the desire to talk with salespeople. When you do get to talk to a customer they are often just as informed as the sales rep about the product specifications, the competition, and the pricing. Small talk is not necessary and they are ready to negotiate. Once again, the web has changed the landscape for the buyer and the seller; in this case, the buyer seems to know too much, while the seller is reduced to a price and delivery information exchange.
Bricks and mortar store fronts are now being trumped by websites that require ecommerce applications. Sparkling website sales copy has grown ineffective, if not inadequate, since visitors tend to scan rather than read. Visitors don’t want to be bothered with details or trite sales pitches; instead visitors want to find help with their problems or needs.
Search engines have grown increasingly sophisticated and now prefer copy that is written by an SEO copywriter rather than a traditional copy writer or journalist. Getting found on the internet is now the priority for the website owner. After getting found on the web, the goal then is to get the visitor to respond to your call to action (CTA), which may be for them to contact you for more information or to buy now.
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the other social networking websites have supplanted the water cooler as the place to go when you need a break from your work day. Emails almost seem passé in comparison to these social networks. For some, these social networking sites are the only way to connect.
Similarly, landline telephones are quickly becoming old fashioned with many “twenty somethings” using cell phones only. Text messaging is the new telegraph or shortwave radio, which has created a new language of sorts or certainly a new way of spelling.
Thus, familiar marketing challenges require new and different responses. The same old marketing techniques don’t work as well as they did a few years ago, or even a few months ago. Do you want your business to survive in the new millennium? Then you better get with the program and embrace “Déjà New Marketing”.
Answer this: What marketing tools are you using today that seem less effective than they did in the past?
