Back when I was in college studying marketing, they showed us the marketing funnel. I’m not sure if they still teach this, but if you’ve studied You’ve probably seen it too. It’s basically a process where you start with a large number of prospects then proceed to a shorter number of qualified leads, then to customers, then to clients. This is the old way of doing things. In the past, marketers had no choice but to interrupt people and inform them about your company’s offerings… whether they were interested or not. The focus was on mass. Marketers needed to constantly fill that funnel with fresh prospects constantly. My how things have changed. Seth Godin discusses the shift away from mass (yet again) with his twelfth trend in Meatball Sundae, “the shift from how many to who”.

We’ve talked about it before, and we probably will again. Now is not the time to waste resources spamming people. Instead you should focus on exactly the people that are interested in what your company offers. Think of it like this. If the old approach to marketing was a hand grenade, then the new approach is like a phaser from Star Trek (or a laser for my readers that aren’t cool enough to watch Star Trek). It’s very focused on individuals not on random groups. These individuals, if targeted correctly will be your biggest fans and will go out and spread the word to others in the community. If you’ve segmented the market properly, finding these communities online should be a piece of cake.

Even if you have a product that appeals to a large group of people (say beer for example) it doesn’t mean you should spam random people. There are appropriate places for your message, and it’s your job as a marketer to find them. Maximize your resources (time and money) don’t waste them, marketing to an audience that doesn’t care or can’t afford you’re offerings.

The problem with a lot of online marketing is that many companies try to focus on using the new tools of the internet to focus on doing things the same old way. They look at things like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and online ads to interrupt masses of people and spam them with their message. It just doesn’t work that way, no matter how much you want it to. Especially online, it’s very easy to click away and ignore your message. In order for me or any other consumer out there to be interested in what you are offering, it must be relevant to what I’m looking for at that instant.

Anyways, you get the point. Focus on individuals not on mass. Only two more trends to discuss!

Notables quote from this section:

• “Let’s be really clear: the web is the single worst medium ever devised for interrupting people who don’t want to be interrupted.”
• “Marketers who are in sync with this new tool realize that it won’t let you do the old thing better, what it will let you do is find people to spread the word for you.”

Yesterday I mentioned that a picture is worth a thousand words. Check out this link for an example of this. Video game developer Naughty Dog (known for creating the amazing Uncharted games, the Jak & Daxter series, and the Crash Bandicoot series) is apparently quietly sponosring kennels for animal shelters in California.

They didn’t make a big deal about it. They didn’t alert the media and say “hey look at what we just did! Aren’t we a great company.” No, they just went out and did it. And guess what? I read about it online, just like you are now. In a world where everyone has a camera, it was bound to be publicized in some way. Even if it wasn’t, who cares? At least they still helped some homeless dogs out.

The moral of the story is not to do good things and then sing your own praises; instead, do the right thing because it’s the right thing to do, then let your community spread the good word for you. Then sit back and reap the rewards.

One of the first rules of marketing is to segment the market. You probably already know that, but if you don’t, now you do and remember kids, knowing is half the battle (the other half is apparently blowing stuff up). What’s been happening lately though is that the market has actually been segmenting your business. Before, you could get away with packaging products together, but in today’s market, customers are demanding pick-and-choose component based solutions. Look at products like iTunes where you can purchase individual songs instead of complete albums. This phenomenon is Godin’s seventh trend, “Google and the dicing of everything.”

I’m not sure exactly when Google became the standard for web searches, but one thing is certain. They have completely changed online business forever. Before Google, we had to go though a company’s main web page and then click though different pages to find the one with the information we needed. Now with Google, we can jump directly to the page that pertains to our search. This means that your company’s offerings should be very specific as opposed to the pre-packaged offerings of the past. If I’m looking for an adult sized banana costume, I can Google my query and pull up a number of sites where I might find exactly what I’m looking for. That’s just an example… no really, I’m not looking for a banana costume, stop looking at me like that!

The point is that no matter what your company offers, you need to understand that the customer will not be satisfied with the package that you put together. They demand to pick and choose the best elements themselves. They want to jump directly to the products (or services) that pertain to them, and they want to do it with minimal clicks. Respect your customers time, and segment your products accordingly. If you don’t, your competition will, and then they’ll reap the benefits while you go out of business.

Trend eight discussion, “Infinite channels of communication” coming soon.

Notable quotes from this section:

• “Specific searches mean that bundling is not necessary.”
• “If you can’t offer more than a commodity, someone else will sell it cheaper.”

It’s time for another book discussion. This time, I’m reading Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync? by Seth Godin. The general idea is that not all organizations are optimized to take advantage of the new marketing opportunities out there today. Instead many companies are still focused on old marketing techniques. Godin discusses 14 trends that have re-shaped marketing, and illustrates how you can optimize your business to take advantage of these trends. Since the organization of the book is a bit different (and you really should read it yourself), I won’t be discussing the book chapter by chapter. Instead, I’m going to discuss each of his 14 trends in turn.

Let’s start the discussion by defining old marketing vs new marketing. Godin describes the era before advertising as a time when small and local businesses thrived. Products were usually made by hand, and sold locally. Many of these companies failed to invest properly in marketing to the masses and therefore died out when the advertising age hit. The era of advertising is what really describes “old marketing”. Godin define’s old marketing as “the art of interrupting masses of people with ads about average products.” (reminds me of those old toy commercials when I was a kid) Many companies are optimized to take advantage of this approach. However, we are in the era of “new marketing”, and many companies aren’t set up to take advantage.

“New Marketing” Godin says, “leverages scarce attention and creates interactions among communities with similar interests. New marketing treats every interaction, product, service, and side effect as a form of media.” See the difference? Let’s break it down a bit. Old marketing relies on a limited number of media outlets (print, radio, television, etc); new marketing has unlimited media outlets. Old media is focused on appealing to masses; new marketing focuses on appealing to niche audiences. Old marketing is based on marketer-to-consumer communication; new marketing is based on consumer-to-consumer communication. Old marketing sells with features; new marketing sells with stories. The book outlines many more differences, but you get the idea.

Think about it for a few minutes. From the ground up, many companies are designed with this old marketing approach in mind. They create average products for the average consumer, and use mass media to let the world know. If this describes your approach to marketing, then you will not be able to take full advantage of all the new marketing opportunities available. I’ve talked about companies using social media poorly. Many times, it’s because they focus only on the new toys and not enough on organizational changes. If you want to take advantage of new marketing opportunities, you need to create outstanding products and then tell stories directly to the people that you’ve gained permission to talk to.

What do you think defines old marketing and new marketing? Do you agree that we are in a new era? Discuss in the comments or send me an email.

Next time we’ll discuss the first trend, “direct communication and commerce between producers and consumers”.

I was eating a cheeseburger at Whataburger the other night with my girl, feeling kind of depressed that I don’t have a job right now, and it suddenly hit me. This recession could be a big opportunity for marketers and for business in general. Let me explain.

If you’re one of the many people like myself that have been laid off this is an opportunity for you. Like my man Nietzsche said “That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” I have a feeling that you are all feeling pretty strong right now, because we’ve all been hit by hard times. Just remember, if you can survive and even succeed in difficult times like these, you can succeed any time. Just because you don’t have a job doesn’t mean you should stop working. Instead of simply telling companies what I can do for them, I started this site so that I could show them. You should too.

It’s no secret that money is scarce right now. This means that businesses have to work harder than ever for those few dollars. It’s survival of the fittest, and those companies that do not evolve will die. Remember my post about staying ahead of the curve. Companies that previously played things safe will need to take some risks if they want to stay alive. It’s a big opportunity for you creative thinkers out there to speak up. Don’t waste your opportunity.

Here’s what I think… forget the one million dollar superbowl ad or whatever you were going to spend on traditional media, and invest that money into a team of awesome marketers that can take full advantage of the free and cheap tools online to market your business. With all of the recent lay offs there are tons of excellent marketers sitting on the bench and hungry to make your company tons of money. You have A-list talent available, you don’t have a budget, and yet there are tons of free tools out there for those with the know-how to use them. Take advantage.

I could go on and on, but I’ll leave you with this… times won’t stay bad forever, but what you do personally and professionally right now will define your character for years to come. Take advantage of the opportunities available to you, and position yourself for the good times that lie ahead.

Happy 2010 to everyone out there!