Effective Marketing is nothing more than a set of Ginsu knives
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Fri, Mar 04, 2011
Are you marketing for now or the future?
When it comes to planning for the future and taking into consideration the digital evolution of the marketing function, companies as well as marketing departments are going to have to be more open to change. The simple fact is that the marketing systems that were put in place at the beginning of the twentieth century are no longer relevant to today’s market place and this is the first obstacle that challenges marketers in the twenty-first century.
The required knowledge is changing for marketing
This will have to be also taken into consideration when companies are looking to build strong marketing teams for the twenty-first century. Whereas in the past, a marketer needed an understanding and knowledge of the industry, marketplace and mass communications tools, today’s parameters demand a different level of knowledge. Along with general business and multi-disciplinary skills, today’s marketers must also have a familiarity with marketing technologies, social and communications skills, statistical analysis skills, writing and creative skills.
What worked before is changing
This changing emphasis on skills reflects a shift away from the previous calls for marketing to have ‘big ideas’ to the need for them to have constant and evolving ideas that can drive content and on-going creativity. Think of an in-house blog as a starting point. In the past, marketers may have had responsibility for creating a monthly newsletter that was posted to a mailing list of existing customers.
Marketing is always about creative thinking
However, blogs are typically written weekly if not daily and must not only give information but also serve to reinforce a business’s presence on search engines. This means that not only must the marketer have writing skills, but must have the creativity to continuously come up with new content for that blog. Also the blog can potentially be seen by anyone, not just existing customers, so it must be written in a way that informs customers but also sells to prospects. Also that blog is likely to be linked to social media, so aspects of it must be extracted to create winning headlines to appear on Facebook, Digg and Twitter.
All in all this means, that the role of marketing is even more precise and marketing skills must reflect that precision and sharpness. So how are you sharpening your marketing team? And if all fails go looking online for your Ginsu knives
If you have more questions about effective marketing for the future, contact SiliconCloud today.
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