Hmmm…. your customers are creating the market place now not you. Give us choice and we will take it! Look at us has been replaced with look at what we are doing. The big question; is your marketing designed for a static world or an ever changing one?

Markets will always outperform individual businesses, they also learn a lot faster and are better connected than  business too. If you’re marketing ain’t broken, its about time you asked yourself why? As Jeff Jarvis said “The mass market is dead. It committed suicide. Google just handed it the gun.”

Most companies, for the last 10 years, have taken the easy way out to market their brands, they have essentially bought customers. Sadly, its cost more and more and had less and less impact. In the past it was about driving traffic to your business, now its about loyalty.

Remember this equation; Feeling valued = loyalty + commitment

Most of us are still acting as if what we do is scarce. Shouting isn’t going to get you heard above the crowd, not when everyone else if shouting too. Now really is the time to tear up the marketing you have been doing in the past. Measure its return on investment and, then when you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, go and find some other way of connecting with your customers.

Some people, in fact more than we would like to admit, are underestimating the scale and the power of non financial motivations. This is also true of freedom to express oneself too. I recently had a delegate offer ” why on earth would my employees want to express themselves?”

The web is not a separate world, so far in the distant, too difficult to reach and understand. It really isn’t Jupiter. It’s actually just a different one that is presenting a different set of rules, a change in the way we do things and allowing us to connect in a way we have never experienced before. It’s unprecedented.

A lot of us are having to unlearn things, lots of things. For those of you who think the web is isolating and responsible for a generation of people who don’t communicate with each other, think about this; all of us watching the Winter Olympics around the world at the moment, in our own living rooms, passive, one way, broadcast stuff, now who’s isolated?

As the new tactics of marketing really start to have their say, as the case studies begin to roll in and as the mass market gets used to using these new tools to communicate, connect, share and collaborate with customers, it will demand a significant shift in your business too.

Gone are the days when you bought a bit of advertising and then waited for the customers to roll in. We’ll laugh loudly with slight embarrassment in a few years time when nostalgically we remember the days when we used to send brochures and leaflets out in an attempt to attract people to our business.

This change is unprecedented and like a ball rolling down a hill its gaining momentum. As Clay Shirky says “Communications tools don’t get socially interesting until they get technologically boring. The invention of the tool doesn’t create change; it has to have been around long enough that most of society is using it.” Well they are getting boring and whilst we may be a little way off mass adoption, it will hit us like a barge pole from behind if we are not prepared.

It won’t necessarily mean marketing budgets will soar, in fact they are likely to plateau if not reduce. Individual customer experiences and solid relationships will become more important than you being in the local rag (mainly because it may not exist anymore.) What social media may do is reduce your marketing budget but be aware it may also increase your own personal time investment in communicating.

I’m cheating today, but hey if someone posts something concise and great, why not share it, it’s what blogging is about! Fabulous post by Seth Godin, got me thinking anyway.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/01/in-between-frames.html

It must be in our genetics, we seem to complicate even the simple stuff. Often, in an attempt to control, feed our ego, or basically seem more intelligent than others we create complications. We are then seen as the expert, whereas others, merely ignorant or confused.

Factors that are simple to follow we over complicate like systems and procedures. Government is a specialist at this. Systems are meant to simplify life but often they result in bureaucratic, unwielding, overwhelming, overburdened clap trap! It’s as far away from innovation as you can get.

Yet, the complicated things like relationships, we try to simplify and, in the worst case scenario, we try to systemise. Systemise something and you suck the life out of it. No wonder as employees, customers and business partners, we get frustrated, angry, hurt and overwhelmed.

Relationships are meant to be challenging, exciting, varied, rich, diverse. Systems and procedures are not.

Over the Xmas period I’m writing an eBook considering how business is changing including the fundamental shifts we are experiencing and, also the key things we possibly need to get back to. It will cover between 50 and 100 words all supplied by my colleagues, clients, followers, connections and fans. Although, I may throw a few into the mix.

I’m hoping to provide an overview of some critical factors that will influence the future of work and business. Some of you have been kind enough already to provide some interesting topics such as; value, adaption, substance, competition, talent, time and feel.

It would be great if you could join in! I’ll reference you in the book and provide a hyperlink to your website or blog. Hopefully, I can provide some thought provoking ideas and thoughts with a bit of humility too. Can’t wait for the conversation to start once it’s published in February/March 2010.

If you want to contribute a word or two, please just make a comment on this blog, direct message me on www.twitter.com/annholman or, email me at ann@annholman.co.uk

Thanks!

When was the last time you let your people play? Not throwing a ball around the car park or the games we all get on our computers and mobiles nowadays, but serious play.

Play is the essence of innovation and idea creation. It requires freedom from constraints and freedom from conditions.. Watch the kid in the school yard with his/her tractor. Complete absorption in the activity, unadulterated imagination and clear determination is at work.

Play is critical, it’s serious stuff and it encourages us to look at things differently. With your team look at something mundane in your customer process or consider that boring waste management project. Play with it, modify it, destroy it, build it up again. Completely go wild, break it open and come up with 10 new ideas and see where that takes you!

As Joesph Chilton Pearce said “Play is the only way the highest intelligence of mankind can unfold.” Not a bad quote really.

It’s easy to get trapped into doing everything. After initial start up, you’ll get dragged into all sorts, particularly if you can’t say no! Then it gets all messy and complicated, something us humans have turned into an art form. Cut to the chase, keep focused on building value and concentrate on these five aspects:

1. A proven track record. It builds reputation

2. Develop word of mouth mechanisms that reinforce your track record. Keep marketing costs low by adopting this strategy. Creates credibility.

3. Continuously grow your skill base, knowledge and understanding. Become an influencer in your area of expertise.

4. Let your character come through, it’s the only unique thing you have.

5. Identify what you are really good at and thrust yourself into that.

Refresh it, change it, reinvent it occasionally but never stop working on them.

People will often say that your brand is like Marmite, they either love it or hate it. Your retort should always be, as long as people don’t find us indifferent. These ARE times for ’sticking your head above the parapet’ and ’sticking out like a sore thumb’ as long as it’s for something exceptional of course.

Being in an indifferent position is fundamentally a difficult place to be. Customers don’t see you and therefore ignore you. It becomes inherently difficult to build any traction on the customer loyalty front. Many companies initiate the worst action with poor consequences by trying to buy customers through traditional marketing tactics. That only gets you bad profits which you can’t sustain over the long term.

Better have a smaller list of customers who love what you do, promote what you do and buy more of what you do again and again. Rather than the ‘yeah whatever’ group that aren’t listening. Those that hate you…..well that’s just life!!!

I don’t think we are under any illusions here. Moving from a pre dominant offline marketing strategy to an online one is going to be tough. Not least because we have to go back to the drawing board and start again, forgetting almost everything we have been taught about marketing.

That’s not a bad idea though is it? Structurally things are shifting and essentially we have to move from a transactional relationship with our customers to one of engagement. In 2007, Forrester offered the definition of ‘engagement’ which included four elements; involvement, interaction, initimacy and influence. Now there’s a start. For me ‘influence’ is probably the most significant and exciting. Scott Gould has posted a fab article that’s a must read on influencers and translators. Catch it here at http://scottgould.me/influencers-and-translators/

There are three challenges here. Design a strategy that incorporates the four elements and embeds them in the culture of the organisation. Secondly, that those elements are implemented at every stage of the customer process and, thirdly, that you measure them to ensure it translates into meaning for you and your customers.