The days of “Mad Men” are fading into marketing history. The time when two martini lunches, a compelling advertising campaign and a huge placement budget are coming to a close; or at least considered politically incorrect. Today’s secret to every great longstanding marketing campaign is “content” and “conversation.”
The golden age of advertising is coming to a bit of a watershed event as inbound marketing and social media replace long-standing methods of convincing the populace that they “need” the latest/greatest/cheapest/easiest/sexiest/best “watchyamacallit” [insert the name of a good or service here]. Thanks to DVRs, Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, and a myriad of thousands of other social websites, we have become a culture obsessed with sound bites of a different nature.
How else can you explain why a YouTube video of a double rainbow garners 38,085,868 (and counting) views while the latest ad from your organization may be happy with 10,000 impressions?
I agree and disagree with an article I saw at Forbes.com titled “Content Is King, Distribution Is Queen”… On one hand I agree with this panel of experts that availability of fresh, informative, compelling content is driving the new wave of market influence, but disagree that fixed distribution channels is the vehicle by which this content should be served. As any inbound marketing professional will attest, it is engaging conversation that will make or break today’s social marketing campaigns. These conversations tend to happen organically and usually not where you expect them.
So where can you find theses conversations? The short answer is among people who share the values you are looking to influence. They will congregate in locations, physical or digital, where they can share in their like values.
So… you can either:
- Find, join and actively participate in a preexisting conversation
- Create a new place to fill a void in the current market
- Attempt to lead an established adjacent-space conversation into the direction you desire
Bottom line is that if you are not in the conversation with compelling content, you are not relevant. If you are ready then the path to success is simple:
- Secure credible content sources
- Develop a strategy for discussion-worthy topic development
- Engage in conversations
- Review response rates and tone and then
- Adjust accordingly and
- Repeat with relentless enthusiasm
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