Is Marketing Dead?

Just as I predicted micropayments are going to revolutionise online content, what I didn’t predict was the politics that would occur. Amazon and PayPal are seeing the possibilities and trying to take their share, with 5c and 5% for each transaction. Interestingly the content providers rather than embracing micropayments they prefer to continue to provide content for free rather than set a precedent. TinyPass and its link to the Huffington Post may shake things up. Let’s see how this plays out.

One question I’d like to throw out is quite controversial for a marketer, “is marketing dead?” The reason that it has been suggested that marketing is dead is because of the growing role of word of mouth. WOM has always been key, I am sure you have spoken to friends and family when looking to make a big decision or to try a new product, or told someone about a great experience. Small business owners rely on their peers; in fact this is their main source of information in buying. With social media, WOM isn’t just over a beer or at a family function, but anytime, day or night. Just as people will be vocal about bad service or a bad product, nowadays it is easy to be positive; that great meal out, a bank that is open when you didn’t think it would be. Of course all your friends and followers tend to trust your opinion more than that the anonymous advertising.

I am not saying advertising is dead, name recognition moving to brand recognition and all the associated attributes will shorten the sales cycle and add even greater believability to WOM. So the new marketing has to focus on the whole end to end experience, not just the product and service and create an environment where WOM is supported. So I don’t think Marketing is dead just evolving and having a greater role in shaping the operational side of the business.

Update on Newspaper Pay Walls

Golly it has been a while since my last post, sorry guys, moved from the world of consulting to a real job and rather taken my mind off the normal things of life, like blogging. But that has bought some time for paywalls to get a grip and now I can comment on the success or otherwise of them.

And success it appears to be for The Times, with envious results, the paper has 105,000 paying digital-only subscribers, as well as a further 100,000 joint print and digital subscriptions.

Around 50,000 of the digital-only subscribers are monthly and include subscribers to the website, iPad app and Kindle edition. The rest are either single copy or pay-as-you go customers. Last week's Neilsen figures showed that the number of unique visitors declined 42.6% from Q2 to Q3. So why do I still think is success? Because they still managed to keep 51.8% and got them to pay. Not only that they now have a relationship with the subscribers they now have incredibly valuable data on the subscribers and their reading habits; great consumer understanding and the consumers are paying News International to give the newspaper the data.

The Times is backed by a large enough organisation that this trial could take place with lower risk than some smaller publications. It also has another huge benefit that helped them be successful, quality journalism.

So What is a Full-Service Marketer?

This is a question that I seem to have been asked a lot recently. When people hear of Full-Service Agencies there is an understanding that they will offer clients a full range of services including advertising, direct marketing, media and public relations, websites and online marketing. In the marketing world it means something rather different.

A full-service marketer is someone who is experienced in all aspects of marketing. This includes;
* Market Understanding and Market environment
* Customer Understanding
* Marketing strategy
* Marketing planning, this may direct any promotional, communication or advertising plan as a tactic of the marketing plan.
* Depending on your organisation it could include product/service development and life cycle management.
* Messaging, equity and brand building
* The four Ps, Product, Price, Place, Promotion
* The marketing tactics, which I have already eluded to marketing communications, plus eMarketing, CRM and Sales - yes Sales is a marketing tool.

As you can see Marketing is very broad and this is what makes it so fun. In a large organisation you might only get to handle some parts of the marketing mix, whereas in a smaller organisation you might end up getting to manage it all. Over your career you should be able to undertake almost all the marketing activities and see what best suits you and most interests you. What you will find is that if you don't do part of the full-spectrum of marketing, then someone else will. I have heard of operations doing product management to sales doing launches and support materials. Really that isn't an issue if you as the marketer have fed in the customer needs and market information, and set the positioning clearly, the philosophy should touch everyone in the company. If you remember whatever marketing role you play, you are the champion of the customer internally, and your role is to meet the unmet needs of the customer, profitably.

One could say that marketing is so broad because it encompases the whole business, the customer focused delivery of products or services to meet or exceed customer needs, better than the competition, to meet the corporate goals. I have been very fortunate to cover all aspects of marketing over my career, so feel free to ask me any questions, or if you want to challenge my definition I'd love to hear your thoughts.

VikiB