The Future
of Marketing Part 1
by: Michele Pariza
It used to be if you were a small business,
you were at a distinct disadvantage with your marketing compared
to the bigger companies.
No more. Small business owners will actually have an edge over bigger
companies thanks to the emerging marketing model.
Yes, you heard right. Emerging marketing model. The old ways of
marketing are dying. And a new regime is coming of age.
To understand how marketing is changing, it's important to start
with a bit of history. The image most of us have of marketing is
based on an old communications model, one that was popular in, say,
the 1970s. That was when we had three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS
and NBC -- no FOX either) a public station, one newspaper and a
handful of magazines and radio stations. Trade magazines and newsletters
were few and far between, we had no Internet and no e-mail.
Because consumers had so few choices, it was fairly easy to market
to them. Chances were pretty good they were watching, reading or
listening to one of a handful of mass media sources.
In fact, to be successful in this marketing model, all you really
needed was money.
Here's how it worked. A business created a good product. The business
hired an advertising agency. The agency spent thousands of dollars
placing ads on the three network television stations and national
magazines. Perhaps it also bought a few spots on local radio stations
and newspapers. And if the ad budget was big enough, success was
practically guaranteed.
There was no mystery to marketing. Mostly it was a numbers game.
Spend the money and get a return. Businesses were selling products.
Mass media businesses were selling advertising space. Advertising
agencies were buying space. Everyone was making money. And everyone
was happy.
Fast forward to 2004. Now, instead of three television channels
we have hundreds. Instead of a handful of magazines we have dozens,
including about a million trade publications. On top of that, we
have the Internet and e-mail just begging for a piece of our time.
Never before in the history of communications have audiences been
so fragmented. Just finding your customers has turned into that
old adage of finding a needle in a haystack. But that's not the
only challenge -- even if you do locate your customers that's no
guarantee they'll listen to you.
Wherever we go, we are confronted by marketing message after marketing
message. It's been estimated that we're bombarded with over 3,000
messages a day...and that number keeps going up. How have we responded?
By learning to shut most of those messages out (which of course
makes it even harder for marketers to get us to act upon their message).
But the woes of the traditional marketing model don't end there.
The Internet has also introduced a little thing called accountability
When you market online, you can track what people are looking at
and, even more importantly, where you lost them in selling process.
For instance, you can check your Web site stats and see which pages
people entered your site and which pages made them leave. You can
track what people clicked on in your e-mail campaign or if they
clicked at all.
With traditional or offline marketing, you only know if it worked
(a customer bought something) or didn't (a customer didn't buy something).
You don't know if they saw the ad, read the ad or what happened.
All of this is bad news for those who have built their business
on the traditional marketing model. But, it could be good news for
you. How? Find out in part two.
Michele Pariza Wacek owns Creative Concepts
and Copywriting, a writing, marketing and creativity agency. She
offers two free e-newsletters that help subscribers combine their
creativity with hard-hitting marketing and copywriting principles
to become more successful at attracting new clients, selling products
and services and boosting business. She can be reached at http://www.writingusa.com
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