I apparently lack it. Or time. Either way, I haven't posted in two years. Oh well. It has to do with whether I'm in consulting mode or employee mode. You might have guessed that now I'm in the former.
So, here's what I'm thinking today. It's time for the digirati (those of us in digital marketing) to focus on the marketers who seek us, and to stop trying to sell to those who don't. No more meetings about whether seniors use the web or if women are gamers. No more arguments over the relative value of TV versus digital video. No more wrangling over how to translate a GRP into some newly redefined measure of engagement. No more. I'm ready for conversations where we are talking about how to do these things, not whether. I want to be deciding among vendors who can write iPhone apps, not between spending on apps versus ads.
Most of you may have already had this revelation, but I've been bloodying my forehead for some time, taking on the role of "change agent." Inside organizations. On behalf of marketers. Guess what? Most marketing people I've come across lately don't like change. I don't mean risk...they definitely don't like that. I mean they don't like things that are different from the way they did it last year.
This has been difficult for me to really get, because I LOVE change. To me, the thrill of marketing is in solving an old, recurring problem in a new way. But not new for new's sake; new, because now, new is likely better. And certainly not new in an unstructured way: a new solution needs to solve the problem in a predictable way, consistent with goals of the brand and marketing and consumer. And the impact of new needs to be clearly measured. Probably in new ways. New requires a disciplined approach to marketing (among other attitude shifts by marketers) that is that is fed by an expanding flow of new solutions.
Anyway, I'm off now to seek open-minded marketers - interested the discipline of taking managed risk with new solutions that are iteratively better over time - to help make them successful.
I feel better already.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, April 30, 2007
Sunday, April 22, 2007
"On avoiding the curse of marketing tsolutions..."
I had drinks at Michael Jordan's in Grand Central with an old friend of mine on Friday. She was in visiting from sunny Florida - and you could tell. People seem happier down there. At least they look happier.Anyway, she's working on expanding her magazine from print and web to commerce and Web 2.0. We were throwing ideas around about what ought to be done. The possibilities were endless: podcasts, blogs, vlogs, twitter messaging, Second Life, expert advice, buying guides, links to service providers. The list of digital tools could go on and on. As marketers, we seem to focus on these tools a lot. It's understandable; they are in constant flux. Knowing what's in and what's out is critical. As a marketer in 2007, it's tough to keep up. I trust that between the vendors you use, and the surfing and reading you do, you have some idea what's going on. And that's key.
But too much focus on the tools, takes focus away from the goals. In my friend's case, the goal became clear: to give readers more and more reasons to engage with her highly relevant content (that part was easy)...not solely for her benefit, but for their own (that will be hard). As I look around the web at marketing, branding and e-commerce sites, I see that there is so much...flailing functionality: pointless voting modules, simplistic games masquerading as "branded content," 1960s-style promotions slapped onto 21st Century web sites, corpcomm podcasts that will never be heard, message boards with content posted as recently as...2004. I don't need to go on. Flailing functionality is the sign of drowning marketers. Marketers who have allowed their good sense to be overwhelmed by a tsunami of tsolutions.
OK. Sorry. No more overstretched metaphors or made-up words (today). All I'm saying is this. As marketers, we need to step back and question what we're doing. And why. Maybe you need to have a brand avatar in Second Life; maybe you don't. The question is not Am I using the latest digital tools? Or What is my YouTube strategy? The question has two parts:
- Am I using the right digital tools (or analog tools) to strategically achieve our marketing and sales goals?
- Are the tools I'm using providing important value to my target customers?
- Measure your results for each tool; versus those you've been using before and against your goals
- To ensure they are getting from you what they need to make decisions in favor of your products or services, ask your customers and track their behavior
If the answer satisfies your marketing bullshit meter, then go for it. And measure it. And keep doing it if your numbers are moved. Another day, we'll talk about what to do next....
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
"Do as I say..."
I wrote that first entry a while ago, and now, I've written another first entry. And I like them both. But it's my blog, so I can have two first entries - inconsistencies and all.
My father has many great qualities: he is kind, stoic, savvy, a good husband and father, and a voracious reader. But one of the qualities that makes him most interesting is that he is an absolutist. At least, he likes to appear to be one. By that, I mean, he will not, under any circumstances waiver from his point of view, no matter the facts, the logic or the (un)importance of the topic. Whether it was how to tie a hook to a fishing line or whether there were WMD in Iraq, it is his way or the highway. In fact, for many years argument of any kind was not really "OK." As a result, he was always right. Of course. I'm OK; you're OK. Because I say you're OK.
The problem with the dogmatic approach to childrearing - or life - is the inevitable exception. Sometimes situational: like intentionally running a red light on a deserted street at two in the morning. Sometimes chronological (as in, things change): like, it turns out there are no WMD in Iraq. These not uncommon exceptions led him to repeat a common phrase whenever he would break his own rules in plain sight of his rebellious son: "Craig, do as I say, not as I do."
I burden you with all this because, ten years into the digital revolution, and after leading hundreds of meetings and issuing countless "point-of-view" documents to encourage my clients or sister agencies to join the march to an interactive future, this is my first blog. How do I explain away the horrible hypocrisy of telling my clients to free up their minds and take a chance with a new way of marketing? Insisting that they stick their neck out, in the words of the classic Alka-Seltzer spot, "Try it, you'll like it," while they fret about the potential for the next phrase: "I tried it. I thought I was gonna die!" How can I tell them to loosen the bonds of their "brand" and engage with their customers online while I sit quietly on the sidelines of Web 2.0?
Well, I'm taking the dive. I will no longer have to quote my father in this area. As of today, I will do as I say.
POTE (if the White House can do it - POTUS - so can I) is going to be a blog discussing the many issues of moving our industry from the last 50 years of analog mass marketing to the next 50 years of...something new. I'll share with you my dogmatic views on these changes (we all become our parents, right?), and if you're out there reading, you'll disagree. And we'll enlighten each other. For the last 10+ years I've been selling the proposition that in the new marketing, the cutting edge is safer than the trailing edge. At this point, that contention is well proved - as long as you approach and negotiate that edge with the appropriate tools and with reasonable intentions.
I hope I haven't bored you with background. I can't wait to get started tomorrow. Again.
My father has many great qualities: he is kind, stoic, savvy, a good husband and father, and a voracious reader. But one of the qualities that makes him most interesting is that he is an absolutist. At least, he likes to appear to be one. By that, I mean, he will not, under any circumstances waiver from his point of view, no matter the facts, the logic or the (un)importance of the topic. Whether it was how to tie a hook to a fishing line or whether there were WMD in Iraq, it is his way or the highway. In fact, for many years argument of any kind was not really "OK." As a result, he was always right. Of course. I'm OK; you're OK. Because I say you're OK.
The problem with the dogmatic approach to childrearing - or life - is the inevitable exception. Sometimes situational: like intentionally running a red light on a deserted street at two in the morning. Sometimes chronological (as in, things change): like, it turns out there are no WMD in Iraq. These not uncommon exceptions led him to repeat a common phrase whenever he would break his own rules in plain sight of his rebellious son: "Craig, do as I say, not as I do."
I burden you with all this because, ten years into the digital revolution, and after leading hundreds of meetings and issuing countless "point-of-view" documents to encourage my clients or sister agencies to join the march to an interactive future, this is my first blog. How do I explain away the horrible hypocrisy of telling my clients to free up their minds and take a chance with a new way of marketing? Insisting that they stick their neck out, in the words of the classic Alka-Seltzer spot, "Try it, you'll like it," while they fret about the potential for the next phrase: "I tried it. I thought I was gonna die!" How can I tell them to loosen the bonds of their "brand" and engage with their customers online while I sit quietly on the sidelines of Web 2.0?
Well, I'm taking the dive. I will no longer have to quote my father in this area. As of today, I will do as I say.
POTE (if the White House can do it - POTUS - so can I) is going to be a blog discussing the many issues of moving our industry from the last 50 years of analog mass marketing to the next 50 years of...something new. I'll share with you my dogmatic views on these changes (we all become our parents, right?), and if you're out there reading, you'll disagree. And we'll enlighten each other. For the last 10+ years I've been selling the proposition that in the new marketing, the cutting edge is safer than the trailing edge. At this point, that contention is well proved - as long as you approach and negotiate that edge with the appropriate tools and with reasonable intentions.
I hope I haven't bored you with background. I can't wait to get started tomorrow. Again.
Monday, April 16, 2007
First site
Since 1996, I've been living, breathing, strategizing and leading the development of websites. Commerce sites, lead generation sites, ad campaign sites, microsites, massive sites, corporate sites, pro bono sites. Sites for doctors and patients; for flyers and drivers; for buyers and sellers; for architects and entrepreneurs. For virtually every type of client and constituency but myself.So, now, it's my turn. I have developed for myself, in less than 60 minutes, a solution that for others I've spent as long as 12 months on. And I've done it without any of the strategic navel-gazing, creative posturing, corporate angst or legal maneuvering that many of my clients and colleagues have endured (or insisted on). Of course, those efforts tended toward global-types of "solutions" and were in support of "world class"-types of brands, so often there was quite a bit of...something (ego, money, revenue) hanging in the balance. But for me, today, I launch into this effort with only my thoughts and experience to guide me, and a few opinions I've developed along the way.
So, you may wonder, opinions about what? Well, this blog is going to be about my experience of the transition from analog marketing on proprietary channels to digital marketing via the internet and related media. I hope that my experiences will be of some service to someone out there. I'd like to share not only the problems with you (they are many, varied and endlessly entertaining), but the solutions that I've come across.
Who is this blog for? Probably not those global, world-class companies. If they are still suffering from the problems I'm talking about here, they better stop searching blogs for solutions. No, this is for the mid-size marketer who has trouble getting the kind of advice he or she needs to jump into this arena. I'm hoping that the conversation stimulated here will provide the thinking to make such a leap more comfortable.
I guess I'll start tomorrow.
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