Yes, but how do you prove it works?
November 2nd, 2007Mark Earls believes that marketing “communications” is the wrong focus for marketers and that instead, we should be making sure our client/company does things that are worth writing about. He writes:
“Too often communications seek to simulate and fake the interest that companies, products and services are missing. Or distract from the very obvious lack of interest.
No, it’s much more about doing things, baking in the interest otherwise faked and then suggesting and encouraging consumers and employees to do stuff together around this.”
It makes a lot of sense: people increasingly ignore advertising and PR spin so the effectiveness to sell stuff is reducing. At the same time, if you do something special/interesting/important people can now spread the word for you with a click of their mouse. Even without a PR agency.
But it’s not happening very much. Why?
It’s hard to demonstrate tangible results quickly. The pressure to deliver results and outcomes NOW is immense for everyone. To do what Mark is talking about requires a significant investment in time and resources.
It involves people across the company to work together in a way that they are not used to. It takes a significant amount of leadership to revolutionise the way you look at marketing.
Anyone who is involved in marketing knows how hard it is to get support for initiatives that are medium to longterm in any case. Especially if you can’t provide any proof that it will have a measurable result.
So, to get there, how do we demonstrate that “doing things, baking in the interest” is more effective than doing what we are used to doing? And how much more effective will it be?
I support the idea. I think it’s what true marketing is all about. The challenge is to come up with a strategy to introduce this approach that will cut the mustard with the people who are paid to think in revenue and profit. Maybe we should make this a new online project for marketers. It is The Age of Conversation after all.
Update: sincere apologies to the owner of the photo I took off Flickr: I can’t find your name anymore so no attribution…
November 15th, 2007 at 5:15 am
Thanks for the support, David.
I understand what you mean about the resources needed to change the way an organisation does things.
Maybe the way through is a mixture of iniatives. Sure, a number of different folk - myself included - are doing the hard yards on metrics and analytics to make the case sensibly and make it possible for folk to make it work for them selves, wherever they work.
However, if I’ve got it right, Herd theory should be useful in pointing the way forward. Here’s just two suggestions that any organisation can use:
i. create a sense of success around projects that use this approach. If - as Thomas Kuhn famously suggested - we create a sense of utility and excitement in folks involved in a new way of doing things and make that clear to their neighbours and peers, the latter are more likely to join in (certainly more than if we try to change the rules in a topdown manner)
ii. Create some social objects for social object theory…take a leaf out of the great folk at the Ethical Investment Association who invented a charter mark for the buying and selling of ethical investments. Make it easier for folk to interact in the space. Oh, that’s the metric thing again.
I guess my point is not to try to find a system-wide solution but to market the new approach as something of use, once it’s been used…
November 19th, 2007 at 6:37 am
Mark, thanks for expanding on your thoughts here. I believe you are right that simply starting some small initiatives that can prove the ideas is probably the most realistic way of driving change. It’s an interesting challenge. In many ways it is something that B2B firms are probably more experienced with than consumer brands. Interesting stuff!
November 19th, 2007 at 7:25 am
[…] addthis_pub = ‘’; Posted in Strategy, Marketing definitions, Brand, PR, Marketing | Trackback | del.icio.us | Top OfPage […]