Online Marketing is like knitting

In real life, would you put your business behind the mountain, in the middle of nowhere?

Imagine how many customers would you get if your marketing were only tips and hints in the narrow mountain paths. After getting the consumers interested you would arrange them a challenge: “Solve this problem and you get the next clue to find my store!”

This is probably how you’re doing your marketing online right now.

Conversational marketing is a platform business. Domains are dead. Content lives inside social medias, in the conversations among people. Articles don’t live in nytimes.com, they live inside Facebook or Twitter. Videos live in Youtube, photos in Flickr. There isn’t much point in using logic of advertising in online world. Banners, campaign sites and what else, eh? In many cases you can’t even buy the stuff online or  if there’s an online store, it’s hidden inside massive site and no one will find it. That’s how Finnish cosmetics company Lumene did. After playing hide and seek for some time they thought that cosmetics doesn’t sell online and the webstore is now closed.

Marketing online is like knitting. You knit your platform stitch by stitch.

Making knitted wool pants takes time, but it’s rewarding. Whatever you do online, do it continuously plus link and tag the content together. Take part in the conversation. Do remarkable and interesting things – together with your consumers. After a while you’ll find out that you have your own communication platform, driven by Google. That’s your own earned media and it’s much more effective than the traditional one.

Advertising Mammoths suffer from Ice Age

The field of marketing is full of hungry and cold feeling advertising mammoths. Ice age of advertising industry is getting worse and mammoths are fearing extinction. Big, fat and slow clients already died out. Nowadays there’s only left the rapid ones, not as easy to catch. Also those new age predators have come to the same territory to hunt. It seems like they can read the thoughts of the clients, they catch them like hell. Mammoths are screwed, what to do?

“The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different result”, some wise Mammoth ones said. Now is the time to look into mirror and do some radical changes:

• Change the old logic: Stop spamming, go back seat and let the customers drive. You’re already lacking control and that´s ok.
• Change the style: Start behaving instead of claming. Be real, good and honest.
• Change the marketing, management, processes, etc. from deadlines to online. Be fast, be agile.
• Change the mass mediums to word of mouth. Put marketing into a product, tell people a product story.
• Change your business model. Be a valuable partner instead of untrusted subcontractor.

I like mammoths, hopefully this time the strongest save themselves.

Maailma ja markkinointi monimutkaistuivat

Tavarapaljous, viestitä-ähky ja kuluttajien vaatimuksien kasvaminen muuttivat yrityksien arvoketjun ja markkinoinnin kilpailukeinot.

Aikaisemmin yritykset pitivät strategioitaan ja kilpailuetutekijöitään tiukasti kassakaapissa muilta piilossa. Osaamista ja tekemistä johdettiin tiukoilla prosesseilla, joilla puristettiin tuote tehtaasta mahdollisimman tehokkaasti ulos. Valmis tuote jaeltiin kuluttajille valitun kanavan välityksellä. Markkinoinnin tehtävänä oli selittää tuote kuluttajalle parhain päin, tekemistä johdettiin tiukoilla luujuuslaskelmilla ja kontrolli oli yrityksen hyppysissä.

Nykyään tuote on yhtä kuin markkinointi. Arvoketju on muuttunut kuluttaja- ja markkinointilähtöiseksi ja kääntynyt päälaelleen. Tuotteiden tulee vedota asiakkaisiin emotionaalisesti ja niiden pitää tuottaa asiakkaille kokemuksia, joita jakaa muiden kanssa. Menestystuotteet sisältävät tarinan, jota kerrotaan eteenpäin maapalloistuneella markkinalla.

Enää yrityksillä ei ole kontrollia päättää mitä asiakkaat ostavat, vaan asiakkailla on valta vaikuttaa siihen mitä yrityksen tulisi tuoda markkinoille.