What if I told you, many businesses use the same, old marketing methods from 1450 AD?!
Believe it or not, it’s true. And it might be what’s keeping YOU from growing your business…
See, back in the day, the printing press was the hot new thing. Businesses finally had a way to promote their enterprise through mass printing. You know the drill, pamphlets, newspapers, etc. In the 1730s, magazines took on popularity. 1839 brought with it the poster, and less than thirty years later, billboards were on the scene!
All through the era of modern technology, as radios, TVs, and telephones began to increase in popularity, businesses took advantage of these mass trends, and the result was BIG profits. From 1950-1972, television ad-spend skyrocketed from 5% to 15%, decreasing the length of programs. Then, the telemarketing phase began, which, despite the financial success, has exacerbated the marketplace ever since.
And the Ad World continued to snowball throughout the ages of digital, mobile, email, and internet technologies, until… “The Dot-Com Bubble.” You may have witnessed this for yourself. The expansion of the digital age through SEO, email marketing, and yes, even blogging reached its peak. Then the bubble popped!
Now, don’t hear what I’m not saying. These forms of marketing are not dead.
But crafting your marketing plan solely around the method of shoving your PSI (product service or idea) in front of an audience is NOT staying up with the times.
You’ve probably heard it said that “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got.”
The more I think about this quote, the more I realize it’s dead wrong! After years of running ads, building funnels, writing emails, and helping grow our clients' companies, I can tell you with all certainty, if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you will get LESS than you previously got. We must keep growing! Nothing is constant in this continually updating world.
Have you noticed the pattern yet? All these methods, pre-bubble, used a form of advertisement called Outbound Marketing also known by the modern-day term, “Interruption Marketing”. This is any method that forces your PSI into the marketplace. And in times like these, small businesses find great difficulty in competing with the massive ad budgets of bigger companies.
Again, there is a time and place for this type of attention-getting, and we know this by the continued, marginal effectiveness of billboards, phone calls, and social media ads.
Now, as we focus on today’s options, outbound marketing is not the only or even the most effective method of bringing in new business.
Inbound Marketing Arises! The internet brought with it the massive use of search engines, and one statistic, from
statista.com, shows that, on average, people around the globe spend 145 minutes online daily! This is a trend that can’t be ignored. But the approach to attention-getting has been altered drastically.
Instead of trying to force your way to the front of the line, when the people in front of you are giants, we now know that you can bring the front of the line closer to you.
Forget Competition, and Embrace Collaboration and Creativity. The marketplace is tired of being duped by spam and unsolicited messaging! So, we do the opposite. You don’t have to manipulate the market; you must simply adapt to it. If you only remember one thing from this newsletter, it’s the difference between manipulation and adaptability:
• Manipulation is doing something to someone else, for your gain.
(Pull their strings!)
• Adaptability is doing something to yourself, for someone else’s gain.
(Show others you have made the effort to understand and serve them!)
Be an enthusiastic student of marketing options! New ones keep appearing and broaden our horizon of possibilities. Try new tactics and monitor results & progress. And from time to time, you'll find a diamond on the beach.