Internet & Online marketing : Making sense of marketing in the digital age by Mike Osswald
 |
| Image of Mike Osswald | Image Source : |
To understand marketing in today's
digital age I'd like to start with a
little history lesson if we go back
about 150 years ago in US history we
entered a period of time that was known
as the first technical revolution it was
this time we saw rise of factories and
production lines and railroads and for
nearly a hundred years in America we
concentrated our efforts on talking
about the basics of products and setting
up new markets and communicating we
talked about that in newspapers and in
billboards and on radio and for nearly a
hundred years we got by with this but
then as we moved into the era of the 50s
and 60s and 70s with increased
competition and mass production we had
to become more competitive and we used
persuasive selling and we had more
mediums like TV and telemarketing and
Direct Mail but it was in the 80s and
the 90s that marketing really came in to
the science and rigor that we have as we
learned that we could take an inward
approach of just pushing out products to
an outward approach where we could learn
from people and we learned to research
and develop products that people
actually wanted now let me move to today
which is really the second technical
revolution in early 2012 it was reported
that 55% of Americans had used a mobile
device to access the Internet now what's
more 31% of those said it was their
primary device and that means that about
17% access the internet only on mobile
devices and this was back in 2012 now
earlier this year it was determined that
25% of Americans actually have a laptop
a tablet and a smartphone all three
devices in 2013 tablets are outselling
all other forms of devices including
laptops and they're the fastest-growing
consumer technology ever
now that also means that with the
increased smartphone usage and tablet
usage that we are the mobile web is
supress surpassing the desktop web and
that's happening right now today so
where we're at is this world in which
from the time we wake up to the time we
go to bed we are using these devices for
everything from self-expression from
discovery and research and planning to
preparing the parts of our lives and
managing our life our finances our
health we're shopping the complete cycle
of purchase is there and the socializing
and also me time or simply being
entertained so this is the space that we
mark it in today and it's incredible
because in this span of 150 years of
everything we've learned we have an
environment where the devices that we
have in our pockets that are always
connected and so integral to our
everything we do they did not exist just
four to five years ago that's incredible
right so everything we know about
marketing has to change well know also
yes so I've been in this digital
marketing space for nearly 20 years and
I've seen the changes come in marketing
and markets and consumer preferences and
devices and I thought to myself well
really what has been happening that has
changed everything about what we know
and does anything really apply anymore
and I came to realize that if we do take
some of the things that we know and
reimagine if you will and modernize them
that we can get by and we can live in
this new modern age a marketing in the
digital world I should point out that my
definition of marketing is a little
simpler than most marketing to me is
really just telling people why you have
what they need and listening to what
they care about now of course I guess
I'll add that marketing is everything
that you're doing in life and anytime
you're working to persuade someone else
or or or it inform someone else that
they're the customer so everything here
applies to whether you're a business or
an organism
Asian or any type of situation in life
in marketing we learn one of the core
principles is plan your markets we
segment we target we try to optimize and
learn about the customers but often this
is done with research that's done yearly
or even less frequently it's done by
paying panels of surveys to tell us what
they want and it's more reactive about
what did they think about this thing I
want to sell than it is to say what is
it the people who want to buy things
like I want to sell think about them and
what matters to them and so I want to
change that into the first principle
which is called always be listening and
what this means really is to ask your
customers how they feel it means to
survey more it means to think about not
just your customers but about your
products and services in the mind of
your customers and it means to combine
things like marketing analytics and the
call center if you have one and your
frontline employees and all the people
who are involved in connecting with the
customer and really constantly listening
because the more you can optimize in the
faster you can optimize your products
and services they're better if you're
going to be in this rapid environment
promotion is about the nature of your
message and the things that you want to
talk about that's going to be different
whether you're starting a business or
introducing a new product or having just
a quick sale but today as you've seen
that opportunities have been so changed
in what you can do and quite frequently
the promotions that we have are too
infrequent or they are too similar and
we have this opportunity to be out there
much like we did in the hundred years
prior when we talked about practical
advice and tips and information as we
sold those products so my second
principle is always be talking and if
you're listening to your customer
understand what to say you can do a lot
more with the conversation in a lot more
places and you can be like the news
media or the lifestyle magazine and you
can be more than product in price you
can talk about your great business
mission you can talk about your great
employees you can talk about your
charitable contributions and what's
important here is that consumers who are
always connected are consuming
everything that they
can about the products that they want to
purchase so in fact you need to be there
telling them why they should buy from
you at the time that they're already
getting ready to purchase so it's
important to always be talking an old
principle of marketing that we learn is
about activation and activation is about
your marketing mix and where do I want
to engage in different places and
obviously as you've seen what we had for
150 years has changed and we have a
whole new suite of places to engage and
so we have to think further and faster
about activation so my third concept is
about always executing purposefully
because if you have to change the places
where you execute you need at least to
understand why you're doing it and
consumer preferences change and their
habits change and so you need to be
aware that there will always be more
Pinterest sand instagrams and other
kinds of tools that people use but you
can also understand that you can engage
in a different way because now you can
engage when they're shopping or when
they're socializing or when they're
planning their life's activities we have
the ability now to be more part of that
and we can execute purposely regardless
of place the 1980s were a time of big
business it was a time of a women's
suits with big shoulder pads it was a
time of big ideas it was a time
corporations thought that they needed to
have very large organization structures
and with these large and with these big
structures came in Evatt ibly poor
siloed communication between departments
so the concept that was developed was
this idea around integrated marketing
communications let's get marketing
departments and and PR and our
advertising let's get them to work
together but here's the thing after 30
years of doing this we're no better than
we have been when the ideas first came
out in fact it's even worse with the
pace of business change with the need
for people to you know have more
products in the marketplace and with the
pressures and demands of the business we
have all the more ability to stop
focusing on the customer and focus on
the day-to-day we have to change that so
my fourth principle is always be agile
if you are a small business or
you're already wearing many hats and
you're in a good place but if you're a
big organization you have to think
completely differently about what you're
doing you have to stop spending and
planning your budgets yearly you have to
pool your resources if you fail you have
to move on to the next thing you have to
understand how to work together across
not just the traditional of marketing
advertising and PR but include customer
service and support and product
development and research and everyone
needs to participate in an agile
marketing place that understands and
listens to the customer and creates
things they want and executes
appropriately so these are my four
principles for the modern marketing in
the digital age and they are broad they
go deep and they work well together and
they will work for you
Who is Mike Osswald
Mike is the VP of Experience Innovation at Hanson. He holds a bachelor's degree in marketing management and an MBA with a marketing management focus, both from the University of Toledo. He is a member of the Usability Professionals' Association, the Information Architect Institute, ACM SIGCHI, and the Interaction Design Association. He is also the president and sole member of the Seriously Mad Skills with Post-it Notes Association, but isn't one to eschew the wonders of Scotch tape and small scraps of paper.
Post a Comment