I was laughing to myself the entire time I was at the Inbound Conference; we all wanted to learn about the latest trends. Marketing is all about people. Oh yes, that was an earth shattering revelation. I’ve been in the business world over 25 years and it is fascinating to me to see how some things never change. Business and marketing is really about people. It always has been. With all this new technology that is easy for anyone to use, people get too wrapped up in the technology and they forget that they are selling to people. Having the best markeketing in the world won’t help you at all if you don’t have good people working for you who can follow through at what your marketing promises.
Marketing should:
1. Make someone’s day a little bit better.
Gone are the days of push marketing. No one likes to be interrupted by ads, think of everyone who uses TIVO to fast forward through commercials. Think of all the magazines shutting down because their ad revenues are way down. When is the last time you bought something because of a print ad or a radio ad?
If an ad makes you laugh or makes you feel good, aren’t you more inclined to buy from that company?
2. Be interesting to your target audience.
People have the attention spans of gnats these days. If you can’t capture their interest in the first 3 seconds, you’ve lost them. They have moved on to something else.
3. Move beyond social media.
To get inspired about this, look at the story of how Charmin donated 70,000 rolls of toilet paper to the Detroit Fire Department, after they heard that the firemen had to use their own money to buy toilet paper!
Here’s the story:
Charmin helps out Detroit Firemen.
4. Use data to find out what HUMANS care about.
I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at Google Analytics, but basically you can report on anything you want. That doesn’t mean you should. I will talk more about data in a later post, but for now keep in mind, what can the data tell you about PEOPLE.
On the other side, to hire and keep good people, you should:
1. Obsess on the basics.
This quote is from Darmesh Shah, co-founder of Hubspot.
2. Hire people with a positive, can-do attitude.
You can’t teach attitude, you can teach business skills.
3. Perform acts of kindness.
What? You may be saying, kindness and business are often thought of as opposites. After all, isn’t business about “killing” the competition. Oops, I had a mental lapse back to my business school days. I say, rather than “kill” why not try kindness. Most people, your staff included, respond better to positive incentives, rather than threats.
4. Spark imagination.
How else do you think innovation happens? This isn’t just for technology companies who are on the cutting edge, but any business. I maintain that any business, any industry can benefit from employees having imagination and vision to change something.
I’d love to hear what marketing trends you are seeing.
Happy photo is courtesy of LJW Devon’s Flickr Photostream, under Creative Commons Licensing.
nadine mikhael
October 15, 2014
I really enjoyed reading this post Nancy, it is spot on. The technology is a source/tool in many cases, the real medium and channel is the “people” as you so rightfully mentioned, the human aspect is what can make or break a service, a reputation, an experience. And any service orientated company would know that people are always the core, they are the present, the past and the future that build and sustain a brand and ensure it delivers on its promise continuously.
Thanks for this post.
Nadine
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Nancy Loderick
October 15, 2014
Hi Nadine,
Thanks so much for your comment. It really is all about the human experience, no matter what product or service a company is trying to sell.
Nancy
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Our Life In 3D
October 15, 2014
I had an elderly, experienced marketing instructor in grad school. I always enjoyed his ‘5th P’ of marketing. Phantasy! What can the product do for me. ~ nice article Nancy!
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Nancy Loderick
October 15, 2014
Hi,
Thanks for your comment. I love the idea of a fifth “P.”
Nancy
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Ken Loderick
October 15, 2014
Nice post on marketing trends. I wish website designers would stop forcing us to watch video ads when we go to websites to just read an article. It seems that websites are getting very aggressive with their ads these days. I’m constantly clicking the “Close” button or the “Stop” function on an unwanted video ad. I wonder if any of your other readers have noticed this trend?
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Nancy Loderick
October 15, 2014
Hi Mr. Ken,
Yes, those video ads are very, very annoying. I wonder when companies will finally realize that if they annoy their customers, the customers will go elsewhere. Plus, if someone is annoyed, they’re not hearing or seeing the message.
Nancy
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socialbridge
October 16, 2014
Great post, Nancy, and really appeals to the sociologist in me.
I wonder about the concentration span of gnats – I lover radio ads which are well written and s l o w l y articulated. There are a few brilliant ones here in Ireland and they bring me right to the product or service.
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Nancy Loderick
October 19, 2014
Hi,
Thanks for your comment. It’s funny you mention radio ads, I can’t remember the last time I listened to the radio. I never have it on in my car since it can be a distraction. At home, we have cable radio, so there are no ads.
Nancy
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socialbridge
October 19, 2014
Hi Nancy, that sounds amazing to me as I love old fashioned radio, ads and all!!
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