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July 12, 2007
A short while ago Andy Hobsbawn (founder of Agency.com) and I discussed some thoughts on what drives modern buyers. Thought I would share it with you:
1) Self expression - people want to show others what they are about. Look at people who buy cars for image, Apple Mac’s to look cool, etc.
2) Recognition and self worth - people aren’t only after the money! The average person lives better than any of the kings of the past centuries (running hot water, lights, entertainment, you name it, we’ve got it). Look at open source software such as Linux, where people spend huge amounts of time and energy to get their name on the credits list, nothing else comes their way.
3) Crave relationships - people want to engage, be part of communities, get to know others (even if fleetingly). Look at all the high growth businesses on the internet (MySpace, YouTube, Google, Amazon); every one of them has a user generated content and engagement component to the offering.
So, when selling something, think again about what drives the buyer.
Also, if you are looking for an interesting book, check out the The Cluetrain Manifesto. A great read.
June 26, 2007
The challenge I see modern marketers being faced with is that they need to use multiple channels to communicate with to be successful. This I call the “challenge of channels”.
Marketers need to select the appropriate channels to accomplish specific goals. And, with more and more channels becoming available, that means the job of marketing is getting more complex. So, if a marketer is not able to select, manage and align numerous channels at once, then their marketing efforts will be less effective and less cost efficient than they should be.
I suspect some marketers will step up to this challenge, and some won’t. The former will be the high flyers and the latter will be relegated to the position of “marketing administrator” who gets brochures printed.
May 2, 2007
Today, ANTS HAVE MICROPHONES. Think about the noise small businesses make, and how they can touch people far away from them.
I met Andy Hobsbawn (founder of Agency.com) a while ago. He said “marketers in general don’t want to do mass marketing anymore. They want, and need, to sell to small focused groups. Businesses want to be famous with 15 people, not for 15 seconds.” Great thoughts, and I believe it is the future of communication and marketing. This may be different for large FMCG players, but for most companies it isn’t about blasting your message out, it’s about speaking perfectly with a few, and making the message relevant and timely.
Technology has changed marketing practices forever, and businesses need to point their microphones at the right people.
January 30, 2007
Microsoft has decided to use Word instead of Internet Explorer to render HTML emails in Outlook 2007. And the impact of this is……. Disaster for many bulkmail newsletter designs and a tough technical year ahead for email marketers.
The change means that many format functions which are currently used in newsletters and emails, will not render correctly in Outlook 2007. This is like saying from this year, you cannot use bold or red in an email. Many e-marketers will have to go back to the drawing board and cut down their creativeness.
Why did they do it? Microsoft say they have made the change to simplify their coding. This could be true, but they certainly are using their monopoly on the market to make life difficult for anyone not using Mircosoft. This shows them to be moving against the tide of technology integration and progress - an obvious move I guess seeing they are behind in email format, but a dangerous longer term game.
It is worth reading the links below if you want more detail. Fortunately Rocketseed picked this issue up over a year ago and hence has ensured its technology is in line with the Microsoft approach.
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/archives/2007/01/the_truth_behind_the_outlook_2.html
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa338201.aspx
January 17, 2007
I was fascinated to see that the Music industry is trying to remodel its pricing on the mobile phone model. That is you pay a monthly fee for a number of downloads, and you get a free iPod. This bodes well for the MP3 developers and shows that content is king! Good for the consumer and eventually the service annuity model is taking shape. This is supported by the likes of News International’s strategy of buying content delivery businesses like Jamster, a mobile content company, for $100m.
December 18, 2006
I have just spoken at the London AD:tech conference, which is the UKs premier interactive marketing event. The first thing I noticed was that the speaker topics were mostly around practical applications of technology rather than the future vision. This I think is a good sign that marketers are being realistic about things they can do today, rather than dreaming of future possibilities. However, it does show that marketers are still grappling with the basics of online marketing and still trying to figure out how it all works.
After discussing with a number of delegates after my talk, there seems to be a common strategy among them. That is they are using multiple communication channels to get their messages out there. This differs from the past where often marketers chose one channel like newsprint, and stuck to it because it was easier and because they understood it well. This makes modern marketing far more complicated than in the past and it remains to be seen whether today’s marketers up to the challenge.
September 13, 2006
I met with Brad Howarth, a technology journalist, in Australia last week. It
is always great to speak to journalists with a deep understanding of
technology and how it aligns with business, rather than just technology for
news sake. See Brad’s blog here>>
Also interesting to see that Australia is so far behind when it comes to
broadband. The implications of a monopoly are apparent everywhere, and I
believe if they don’t change this, Australia will fall further behind in the
technology race.
What is your view on this? Feel free to comment.
August 22, 2006
Have you ever wondered why instant messaging hasn’t reached the mobile phone in the UK? Simple. Consider what it would do to sms.
My contacts at T-Mobile tell me that T-Mobile is fighting tooth and nail to stop the use of mobile IM. In fact I see on their website that their mobile web surfing package disallows the use of IM and if found they can stop your service. Mobile IM is a wave that can’t be stopped, and the operators which are able to see it coming and exploit it, will be the winners. The threat is that they all collude to avoid short term loss of sms revenue. What an opportunity for a smaller operator to differentiate. Link that in with email and they have a winner in the corporate communication space. Lets see who takes up the challenge.
August 21, 2006
Yesterday I had a fascinating discussion with Adrian Mars, a well known freelance journalist in London. Not mentioning the research he is doing, which could be confidential, it was obvious to me that he is seeing a good 10 years ahead of where businesses are actually acting today. Certain things that are boring to Adrian, haven’t even hit the radar of directors managing large businesses. When he writes for the press, he mixes his long term view with current issues, and it is this mix that got me thinking. What do news agencies focus on, the sexy future or the practical present?
I guess the answer lies in focusing on the audience. For the general public, its all about a quick read of the sexy future. Hence the typical hype and over-sell. For the business leader, it’s about contemplating how he or she can do better business today, not in 10 years time. This means to me that journalism is becoming more polarised: the sexy future vs the practical present. Next time you read a paper, look for the two extremes and see what I mean.
August 18, 2006
If you have been watching sites like Bebo, MySpace and Faceparty, have a look at the different approaches taken to extract value for these social networking sites. A key theme that seems to be emerging is “branded overlays”, or “skinning”. That is where marketers are wrapping their view on the world around the social interactions, hopefully in a relevant way.
What is interesting about this is that marketers are trying desperately to get in on the action “but ad agencies are finding it difficult to commit to an ad format they are not used to” says Birch the CEO of Bebo. Nothing new there, but watch this space heat up as money starts to talk. Murdoch’s purchase of MySpace already seems cheap.
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