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In order to differentiate your business in today’s web based world, you need to move away from using marketing as a way of interrupting your customers.
Previously , if you wanted to grow your business, common sense (and your marketer), would have told you that you needed to craft a creative commercial that would jolt the potential customer out of what they were doing , in order to read/see/listen to your advertising.
With the average customer now being bombarded by thousands of ads on a daily basis, it is no longer enough to use traditional methods of advertising to grow your business.
You need to focus your marketing on informing your customers, educating them about your products and services and giving them a choice, instead of trying to bombard them with traditional price-based advertising.
You need to stop following the old rules!
The Old Rules of Marketing:
David Scott Meerman in his must read marketing book : The New Rules of Marketing and PR, formulated the following old rules of marketing that you need to stop doing if you want to succeed in marketing your business/products/services.
- Marketing simply means advertising (and branding) – Many small business owners still believe that marketing your business equates to advertising. Marketing your business today is all about creating content that informs and educates your customers about your business, your products, and your services.
- Advertising needs to appeal to the masses – Your advertising needs to focus on targeted buyers with specialised messages instead of wasting your valuable cash on targeting the masses who might not be interested in your product.
- Advertising relies on interrupting people to get them to pay attention to your message – Traditional advertising was based on bombarding consumers with thousands of one-way messages every day in order to get them to stop what they are doing and to pay attention. Customers dont trust advertising. They trust companies who interact and engage and who educate them.
- Advertising is one way: company to consumer: Today your advertising needs to be about engaging and interacting with your customers. Your customers want to know that they are dealing with real people, not a nameless corporation.
- Advertising is exclusively about selling products: Advertising is now about informing and educating your customers about your products and services. If you do this the sales will follow!
- Advertising is based on campaigns that have a limited life: Advertising is based now on interacting with your customers on daily basis by creating and sharing content with them. This gives your marketing a lifetime shelf-life.
- Creativity is the most important component of advertising: Previously you needed to create really creative ads in order to be able to capture your customers attention. Today the most important component of advertising is content creation. Creating and sharing valuable content with your customers.
- Advertising and PR are seperate disciplines : The web and social media marketing have blurred the lines between advertising and PR. Sharing your content on blogs, facebook, twitter etc, enables you to advertise and create PR for your business as the same time.
For any thoughts, comments or questions send Yaseen Dadabhay an email at blog@retailmavericks.com
About Yaseen Dadabhay
