How to Green Market to the 21st Century.
Soilent Green Marketing.
Want a new credit card? They’ll transfer your old debit.
How about a trip to Bermuda? 4 days and 3 nights paid for you just show up at the port.
Maybe a free estimate on life insurance? You’re getting old, you know. Gotta take care of your loved ones.
Don’t want any today? That’s ok, they’ll ask you again next month.
Per a recent article in Time Magazine, Americans are pushing direct mail campaigns into our landfills at an unprecedented rate. Here are the facts:
- 40 pounds: weight of junk mail an average American gets per year.
- 8 months: time wasted over an American’s lifetime sorting junk mail.
- 18 to 1: ratio of junk mail to personal letters we receive.
- 100 million: number of trees sacrificed to junk mail each year.
- 44%: Percentage of junk mail entering into landfills–unopened.
- 89%: Percentage of respondents of a national poll for a ‘DO-NOT-MAIL’ LIST (similar to the Do-Not-Call list that currently exists for telephone marketing).
This translates to nearly a thousand pieces of post cards, letters, flats and catalogs per person. The super majority of which are unsolicited. If you’re a B2B business person responsible for vendor decisions, this amount may see small to you. Yet ask yourself, how many of these unsolicited interruptions of your mail sorting do you actually respond too?
20th Century marketing was the hay day for unsolicited, “interruption” marketing tactics. Today, potential clients are savvier in discriminating the good content from the chaff. From being deluged with constant marketing from TV and radio ads, newspaper ads and mailers we can now detect marketing attempts in the smallest of places. My own family enjoys a game of pointing out marketing attempts in movies such as a well placed fast food chain sign, small Coke bottle on a table or a Verizon phone in an actor’s hand. My 8 year old daughter has acquired quite an eye for this. The fact is: we are a smarter species now and should be proud of it. Marketers must learn to respect this.
Yelling in the Roaring Crowd.
Today’s savvy B2B customers already know their market and the vendor players that populate it. Take for instance a small parts manufacturer. He knows where he’s going to get his product painted. Chances are, he’s already got a relationship with one now. When you approach him with a post card or an email, you are asking him to stop what he’s doing to listen to your song and dance. Your routine is well choreographed and you see no obstacles for bringing the viewer on board when they see and hear it. But in reality, you’re just a voice in the crowd looking to get your prospect’s attention. Even if you are the cat’s meow, solely relying on direct marketing may limit your chances to be heard in your market. This being said, how do you get attention then?
Responsibility in Marketing.
Don’t get me wrong, I am still a fan of focused direct marketing campaigns. They are useful in allowing potential B2B clients to learn about your product or service. A focused direct mail piece can effectively augment other media such as email, web, etc. However, we as 21st century marketers must use it responsibly. We are no longer mailers in a vacuum and must stop the attempt to fill the void with our words. When factoring diminishing global resources with the fact that recipients just don’t what the crap, a modern marketer must use responsibility, subtly and common sense.
Become Social-able with Social Media
Modern customers expect more. Knowing this, how do you get the jump on your competition. Listen closely, as I am about to give you the secret to line-jumping in the modern marketing playground. Help them before they buy from you. It’s that simple.
Social Media has given B2B marketers the keys to the marketing kingdom. Being useful to your clients before the buying process paves the path for them to your doorstep. By using content based marketing on third party social media sites along with your own web, you will stand out from the crowed of self centered marketing campaigns that only want to talk about themselves. Here are some ideas:
- Use a blog on your website devoted to your archetypal customer and their problems.
- Get a Facebook business page and springboard your message into that arena of users.
- Use Twitter and Twitter groups to broadcast your message into today’s fastest growing social media.
- LinkedIn is another business oriented networking group filled with business contacts.
- Film a small but captivating video short about your company and push it viral on Youtube.
- Upload company media to sites like Flickr and Slideshare for search engine indexing and customer crawls.
- Start a list of email subscribers that can see your posts via blog and social media sites.
- Ask questions and encourage your customers that already use your product to author content.
- Send out regular press releases to show the world what you’re doing for them.
- Find a non-business related cause that you approve of and promote it. Hug a tree, save a child, eat Vegan or recycle and post it on your site.
But I’m Too Old For this Stuff!
Are you? I submit to you that you’re never too old. There’s nothing magical about it and no skills that you need that you don’t already have, (as to the technical requirements, there’s always a geek or two like me that could help you bring it to life.) You’ve been to cocktail parties, conventions and trade shows. You don’t go up to someone that you’ve never met before and spout off about you and your company. The same goes for social media. People want answers to questions. You’re the vendor and you’re the salesperson. Get a username, sign up a blog, post an article and answer them. Fire up your brain and allow your content based marketing to make you the expert that you always wanted to be!
Recent Comments