Coming up with obscure function names is the first step in obscuring the actual assignment, i.e., selling. At the same time, something else also happens; it is the beginning of an unclear assignment. After all, preaching the gospel is not just an assignment; preaching is about nothing more than winning souls.
The fancy job titles are the first step to mislead a customer. You want people to believe that you don’t want to sell something, that you don’t want to influence them. Yet, marketing is all about influencing people.
Mass communication the main influencer?
The role of mass communication is under discussion. The customer does not want it, it is too expensive, and it no longer works. And we have the Internet and can reach exactly those people who want to buy our product.
The promise of available data combined with all the soft new job titles works like a self-fulfilling prophecy. It makes more and more marketers believe that they know their customers exactly and know exactly what information should be given at what time to make a prospect happy to buy the product. It’s hard to believe that such a thing is nonsense, if only because there are at least fifty other providers for every product and service with the same approach.
Shooting with a rifle
In practice, those internet promises of precisely targeting the desired customer are built on quicksand. There is about one click for every thousand impressions. That’s not precision marketing, but shooting with a scrap rifle: no idea who or what, but you probably hit something.
One in a thousand and two in some cases. Based on such a result, you can safely say that – contrary to what is suggested – you have no idea what you are doing.
The fact that the same people often click on a banner is an even less popular story. Research by Comscore once showed that 85 percent of banner clicks are achieved by 8 percent of internet users. As an online marketer, numbers that you have known for a long time, but that you should let it sink in one more time.
In recent years, marketers have increasingly focused on customers who are enthusiastic about their products. Working with enthusiastic customers who also give feedback is, of course, fun. Fans are the underlying concept of the online community idea, but people who already buy your product are not driving growth. If you want to grow, you have to find new customers, and if you want new customers, you have to make new contacts.
waste
Using mass media allows you to connect with people who had never heard of your product. Because you reach a large group at once, you also reach people who do not purchase your product. As a chief evangelist, content marketer, or storytelling boss, something like this is not up to your alley, and it is called a waste of budget waste. In addition to the frame that advertising does not work, waste is one of the main objections to the use of promoneum services.
And that while waste is one of the active components of advertising.
People who don’t buy your product but do know are much more important than you think. Advertising indicates confidence in one’s abilities, with credibility as a by-product. The fact that a company is willing to invest money in advertising is also regarded as a sign of strength by the non-buyers of your product. A known product is quickly more reliable than an unknown product in the eyes of the customer – and that’s what influence is all about.
That’s not something I made up on the spot. Researchers are bitten on this subject, and the enthusiast especially takes a look at the research of Tim Ambler and E. Ann Hollier entitled “The Waste in Advertising Is the Part That Works.”
Customer journey
Of course, if you want to buy something as a consumer, you start by searching the Internet in many cases. About half of the customers make an exploratory stopover on the Internet on their way to a purchase. That’s a lot, but maybe less than you thought.
The much-discussed customer journey starts immediately after the first acquaintance. When you’re advertising, that introduction often takes place long before the word conversion even enters the picture. That’s why advertising doesn’t have to sell anything. I would almost like to say: quite the contrary. Brand-building advertising does nothing but builds a preferred position in your customer’s brain.
Advertising as a container term is, of course, contaminated and associated with all kinds of intrusive rubbish, not least because of the rubbish produced for the Internet alone. We immediately think of flashing banners, annoying pop-ups. That’s too cool, of course
It’s obvious, but marketers mainly sell themselves and their product by rejecting advertising in advance.
Virtually all large, money-making companies—from Apple to Nike, from Heineken to Hak, from Red Bull to IBM, and from Vodafone to BMW—are built on advertising and to this day spend billions on mass communications. This advertising ensures that your product or brand is pre-sorted in the mind of the customer at the moment a purchase decision is made.
Although data-driven marketers claim that they can accurately predict this buying process, in practice, it turns out to be a completely irrational process. You don’t know exactly when, but when the buying moment comes, your product will be in the front row thanks to advertising in your customer’s brain. That’s exactly what you want. A principle that applies to fast-moving consumer goods and business-to-business, for online and offline.
Future
Recently, NIMA and Hogeschool Utrecht investigated what the Future of Marketing will bring and whether it is possible to think in scenarios. To determine your options to be better prepared for that future. The research with the HU identified a number of themes that will at least influence the future of marketing.
Technological innovations
Technology has always had a big impact on marketing. In practice, the 4Ps have been digitized, and the marketer's knowledge is expected in areas such as data, AI, and machine learning. It is a certainty that the influence of technology will continue.
E-commerce & direct-to-consumer
Apart from new technological possibilities, doing business via the Internet is expected to take off enormously. Online shopping will undoubtedly remain, but how marketing will manifest and develop within it is not. And then the shape. Will sales via third-party retailers continue, will direct-to-consumer become the norm, or will platforms and ecosystems dominate the e-commerce landscape?
Data ethics & privacy
Privacy is increasingly on the minds of both businesses and consumers. With policies such as the GDPR on the one hand and measures such as the disappearance of third-party cookies, it becomes more difficult to track customers via data, while it is becoming increasingly valuable to do this. It is uncertain to what extent new legislation and regulations will restrict certain practices. In addition to legislation, consumer behavior is also an uncertain factor.
Customer experience
In recent years, marketing has revolved around focusing on the customer experience and the customer journey. Everything has to be correct and form a collective whole, regardless of the path a customer travels. This has made the marketer's job many times more complex. Best practices are quickly copied and copied. How do companies keep up with and lead the way?
Purpose & Impact
The purpose was once introduced as a higher purpose that puts individual interests in the background and could inspire the morale of both employees and customers. The goal is also increasingly being used for greenwashing or other pseudo-purpose-like brand-building activities to grow bottom-line conversion. So skepticism is growing. But making a contribution by companies to social goals beyond shareholder value is an essential movement in the world. Left or correct, the pressure to do more than make a profit is mounting.
ROI and sales activation
Branding is becoming increasingly important, and spending on it has doubled in recent years. There is, however, a major shift: relatively more money has been spent on brand activation than on brand building. This is especially noticeable in the digital space. Growth hacking and penetration thinking have blown through marketing like a breath of fresh air, and the digitization of marketing has opened up a new playing field in which direct effects are measurable and ROI-proof. Sometimes brand activation seems to narrow down to sales activities. The effects of brand building are much less measurable but have proved to be a basis for conversion.