Marketing 1.0 Vs Marketing 2.0
“Shouting from the mountaintops with bull horns, hands firmly pressed against the corporation’s ears to thoroughly insure a consistent stream of one-way communication.” The only question merely was, “How could we keep costs down?” Agencies with glorious offices slaving away on your account, adept account executive picking up your check for dinner, drinks, and what-have-you. These where the glorious days where agencies often put more effort into the packaging and selling of their products “ideas” than into the ideas themselves. You see ideas, brilliant or otherwise can appear limp, so the agencies gussy them up to create a stage and enhance the performance to protect and serve the idea. Often, doing so is essential to the selling of the idea: because to those buying, the idea is lost without the packaging. Thus the client ends up paying for everything and everyone outside the idea along with the people who created it. Brunelle believes advertising has become a commodity and advertising professionals no more than glorified used car salesmen. “In steps Procurement and the people who’s job it is to keep costs down find themselves effectively in charge of marketing, agency fees and budgets, and thus, in charge of ideas.” This according to Brunelle is Marketing 1.0

Then, Al Gore invented the Internet. And all kinds of smart people figured out all kinds of new ways of doing everything, including creating ideas.

Introducing Marketing 2.0: Leveraging the power of the crowd. If the true power of marketing and advertising is ideas, then why not embrace a system that can take advantage of almost everyone’s ideas? Recent trends in technology and culture have created an environment where everyone expects to pay nothing or close to it for the ideas that fuel marketing and advertising. After all, how hard can ideas be? But the notion that anyone can come up with marketing and advertising ideas is both empowering and devaluing simultaneously. If anyone can come up with ideas, how valuable can they really be?

What has predominantly defined the financial relationship between the marketing department and the advertising agency over the past century has been a discussion of practicalities, of highly tangible deliverables—ink, paper, distribution, airwaves, bandwidth, etc. It’s never been about the ideas themselves, perhaps because they’re not immediately quantifiable. We seem more absorbed with the math, 15% on media, photocopies, and production markups; the deliverables have always been the solid bedrock for advertising topped off with the idea.

We now however live in more transparent times, ones that unleash the powers of technology, the internet and innovation— times that tell us, for example, that marketing campaigns can be had for free or next to nothing.  The traditional model of the expensive advertising agency with its commissions and overheads no longer applies. If this is the case then the question arises – How do agencies get paid for that idea? Indeed. In this Age of utility, empowerment, and transparency, marketers might think they have it easy. Think again – Marketing 2.0 requires an upgrade to Advertising Agency 2.0 for maximum results.

It is no wonder that fewer and fewer clients think they are in need of a traditional advertising agency.

Business Models Change
As business leaders do their best to avoid the idea that their business model may be changing it is an incontrovertible truth that over time business strategies converge, companies adopt similar practices and begin to look and act the same. Williams believes the model of the traditional advertising agency is over 100 years old and has outlived its usefulness. No matter the “spin” agencies put on it “We’re just going through a rough spot right now,” or “Things will improve as soon as the economy picks up,” or “If only we were in a different part of the country” does little to change the reality that the traditional agency business model doesn’t work the way it used to.

A Marketing Transformation
Traditional agencies operate in the area of “soft” marketing—activities that revolve around brand awareness and preference, hard marketing– pricing, distribution, sales and even the product itself has always been the client’s domain. However there’s a third domain, a link between soft and hard marketing, the domain of evaluating and improving the consumer’s experience with the brand. Everybody talks about it, but few actually do it. Agencies are focused on the traditional manifestations of the external brand and clients are focused on the basic aspects of the internal brand. The role of the agency of the future is much broader and more valuable– to move from creating and placing marketing messages to helping clients evaluate and strengthen the relationship that their customers have with the brand at all points of contact. Instead of making brand promises that companies can’t keep the agency’s role should be to create a positive and authentic brand experience for the consumer.

Connecting to the Brand
To transform the way they do business agencies need to pay more attention to connection planning—helping clients understand how consumers “consume” information and media about the brand. Instead of developing “media plans,” agencies need to develop “brand exposure plans.” Instead of media planners, they need “brand contact planners.” In the agency of the future, media is no longer a stepchild of creative but a part of the creative function.

Moving Forward
Ralph Waldo Emerson once observed, “There are always two parties—the party of the past and the party of the future; the establishment and the movement.” Rather than being the establishment agencies have an opportunity to become a movement and adopt new methods of approaching client business. Brand Management consultancies are able to deliver only on the “thinking” side of the equation. The agencies of the future will provide both “thinking” and “doing” and help clients achieve the continuity that is so important in building a successful brand.

Unlike the railroad executives of the 1920s that couldn’t envision a world in which airplanes moved the public across the country and across the world. The business model for advertising agencies is ready for transformation, and needs forward-thinking agency leaders to help create it.

1. Mine your organization for alternative sources of content
Look beyond the marketing department for expert insight. Product Development and Product Management are good places to start. Look for individuals who can offer leadership and have a point of view and an engaging personality.

2. It’s not all about you
Content must be relevant to the needs of your target audience and be about them, not you. Sometimes this is difficult to keep this in perspective when you are focused on boosting demand for your products and services. Remember buyers have many options and available choices and will choose to do business with the company that they believe understands their needs best.

3. Content that speaks to everyone
More than one person usually makes buying decisions. Content that speaks to one person will not necessarily speak to the person who is approving the purchase or writing the check. Address the interests of your targeted customers on all levels within the purchasing process. And don’t forget the importance of word-of-mouth and referrals.

4. The three stages of content
Customers will be in one of three stages within the purchasing cycle “early,” “middle,” and “late” and it is important to develop content to address each stage.

Early Stage: In this period prospects are researching and learning how your company can meet their needs to either cut costs or sell more. Prospects are not shopping for specific vendors but are certainly forming opinions about who is credible and trustworthy. Therefore, consider aligning your company with a third-party who has instant credibility—such as an objective analyst or consultant.

Middle Stage: Prospects are gathering information about specific vendors, alternative ways they can meet their challenges, including researching ways others like them have solved similar problems. They may be just a short time away from a final decision and content that addresses their needs will add reassurance and aid in their decision.

Late Stage: Those who are ready to buy which include your current customers (who you hope will be loyal) and are evaluating the merits of alternative offerings on their short list.

5. Same content, different formats
Not all of your customers will absorb content in the same way, some may prefer to read while others may prefer a short video or audio presentation. An in-depth serious pieces may work well in areas of your presentation and light short content in others. Use different formats and re-purpose well received content, a successful webinar may be published as a summary of ideas in an e-newsletter or as a whitepaper.

6. Use social media to engage with customers
Social media is attractive as a content distribution platform because of its relatively low cost and word-of-mouth potential, however customers who engage in social media expect to be part of the conversation. You will need to engage your customers in dialogue so incorporate conversation features into your media platform. With new media you need to shift some of your resources from broadcast campaigns to that of conversation and building one-to-one relationships to enhance your customer relationship management (CRM).

1. Provide Useful Content
Help your customers make informed purchasing decisions by supplying useful and valuable content. Evaluate your current content against your audience needs then fill in the gaps. For example you may need to create a ROI calculator or supply additional information in the form of a blog. Re-purpose content, a whitepaper can become a webinar or a video and technical articles can be become conference presentations or a series of blog entries.

2. Provide A Multimedia Experience
The advent of inexpensive technologies and high bandwidth has made multimedia accessible to all, take advantage of this trend. Offer more than just words an static images on your website, record interviews, product demos, and presentations to delivering everything from advice to product announcements. Use videos to promote events, record and archive these videos for future content use, and don’t forget to publish your videos on other website, blogs and on your social media networks.

3. Don’t Ignore Social Media
Use social media to complement other marketing efforts not replace them. To fully utilize social media you first need to understand how your target audience uses it and what platforms they prefer. Survey your own base and place someone in charge of social media efforts to establish an appropriate social media strategy then integrate that strategy into your existing marketing plan. Although there is much buzz surrounding social media many marketers are not sure what commitment they should make right now, your level of investment should match your audience’s use.

4. Explore Marketing Opportunities
Thanks to the universal adoption of the Internet there has never been as many marketing channels available to reach your target audience – search engine optimization (SEO) paid online advertising, online directories, searchable catalogs, e-newsletters and social media to name a few. But a marketing channel that has shown significant growth is the online event, virtual trade shows. A complete interactive experience for suppliers and attendees offering such features as live chat, virtual booths, keynote presentations, content distribution, Q&A sessions, and more, all with no travel expenses or participation cost to incur.

5. You Can’t Manage What You Can’t Measure.
All marketers need to demonstrate ROI and it’s important to choose measurable marketing programs and define your objectives and success. Integrate your online marketing channels into a cohesive program and work with media partners who understand your needs and can help you pull together the right programs designed to meet your goals.

“The theory behind the rule of thumb makes sense, notes Caroline Ruggiero of Marketo.com. “Too early in the week and people are too busy with their actual work to open or focus on your message and at the end of the week and your message will get buried in a barrage of messages everyone has to dig out of come Monday morning”.

But her own preference for browsing work email on Sundays made her wonder if Sunday could be the new Tuesday for email marketers. Although the weekend is a time to unwind, she explains, “it’s also a time to catch up on newsletters, lower-priority messages, and feeds without the distraction of, well, work. I am absolutely more open to reading marketing messages in this quieter, more relaxed setting.”

There’s some evidence that she’s not alone in her habit. An AOL survey found that 62% of respondents checked their work email over the weekend and according to a Pew study, two thirds of Americans do work-related research at home. The only way to know whether your B2B audience reads email on weekends is—of course—to test it. “Perhaps,” says Ruggiero, “your key target might be guilty of indulging in some Sunday work email, just like me.”

So like the Sunday newspaper waiting patiently on the front steps, why not schedule your email for a Sunday morning release so your message will be at the top of the inbox to be perused over their favorite blend of coffee.

Remember that one test won’t give you a conclusive answer. “Flukes happen,” she says. “You can’t try something one time and be certain of anything.” You can’t be confident that you’re observing a trend until you’ve tried it at least three times, she points out.

Time your tests to gauge the reaction of a typical recipient. This is unlikely to happen if, for instance, a test at 2 a.m. determines what will be sent at 7 a.m. “I would argue that unless you’re assured that your audience is comprised of early risers with plenty of email-browsing time, this isn’t the best way to test,” she notes.

Don’t make a snap decision based on preliminary results. “If you send out test segments at 9 a.m.,” she advises, “you probably don’t want to declare a winner by 10 am and send that creative out to the remainder of your list.” To get the best sense of efficacy, give a test at least a few hours—and check in again when more time has passed.

Pay attention to the data. “Make sure to review what’s working best so you can play off of lessons learned and continue to improve,” she says. This would seem to be an obvious piece of advice, but simply conducting the test isn’t enough; if you don’t analyze the data you collect, and adjust your campaigns accordingly, the effort is all in vain.

Remember to always be testing and to review what’s working best for you so you and continue to improve.

Traditional SEO strategies still apply, but Odden suggests these new tools to add to your arsenal.

Digital Asset Optimization (DAO).
Search engine technology is no longer limited to Web pages only, it can now incorporate images, videoes, news, blogs, books and local information. Optimizing for these different types of media involves a comprehensive understanding of what digital assets can be created, keyword optimized and published online for search.

Social-Media Optimization (SMO).
Networking, contributing and the use of receptacle links to social network sites still remain an effective strategy but if PR  and communication professionals can better understand how to influence keyword use of social content, their information will be easier for analysts, journalists and consumers to find.

Micromedia Optimization.
This basically means the real time optimization of status updates such as Facebook status updates and LinkedIn updates that are indexed and included as real time content by search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. This micromedia content can be shared and discovered on platform specific search engines such as search.twitter.com and across social networks that provide the opportunity to syndicate such content.

And the point is…
A better understanding by communications professionals of the nature of search and how to match up optimization tactics with standard search and social search optimization will generate substantial increases in traffic and open new channels for discovery.

Here are four key tips taken from Bhargava’s basic insights to help drive traffic to your site using Social-Media optimization techniques:

Add links to your website.
SEO continues to be influenced by the credibility and number of links your site maintains with other credible sites. By networking effectively you can increase that number thus enhancing the perceived popularity of your site with search engine rankings.

Increase inbound traffic.
It is important to add links on your site to social-media, blogs or other sites that contain back links. Any back-and-forth traffic will increase the visibility of your website.

Make content portable.
Portable content is anything self-contained such as video, audio and PDF files. Share this content with other sites related to your market and forward links to them to your current customers and clients.

Share your content.
The use of RSS feeds to share your site content will drive more traffic to your site and elevate ranking, while promoting a positive sense of community associated to your company and brand.

Whats the point?
Add SMO to your SEO strategy. Social-media will continue to proliferate across the Internet and companies need to get take advantage and onboard with networking, blogging, tweeting and becoming fans of social media linking.