Why online marketing is dead. And why that’s a good thing!

Two years ago, when I helped run our last stand at a trade fair at Dmexco, I witnessed the following scene: an online marketing suite manufacturer was offering its SaaS product in a colorful and flashy way. Two younger hipster gentlemen in jeans and jackets strolled through the aisle and loudly discussed something about digital marketing. Then they stopped at the stand and read a fact sheet about the product. “Ok, we could automatically increase our conversion to over 1.5% with this” – “How do they price it?” – “I think performance with a cap” – “Ok, and it also has big data” – “Yes, of course big data is standard these days” – “Ok, let’s go for it then”. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

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Knowing a lot about nothing

Unfortunately, this conversation is representative of so many online marketers I encounter today. The digital transformation has brought an army of mediocre marketers into the game. In recent years, even the most buttoned-up CEO has realized that marketing should be done on the Internet. And the long-serving older generations who specialize in offline marketing have vacated their chairs, sometimes reluctantly and sometimes very willingly. Very few were able to change accordingly.

However, the newcomers usually didn’t have much more of a plan than that they were already familiar with the digital world. But that is just a prerequisite for good online marketing.

 

“Toolitis”

This month, Scott Brinker (chiefmartec.com) published his Marketing Technology Landscape 2016:

There is, my grandmother would probably say, an ointment for every little ailment. The chart above, which of course also shows a whole host of good products, ladies and gentlemen, is emblematic of the whole misery.

I have often experienced how representatives of such tools in large companies have deliberately and usually aggressively approached rather weak-minded marketing people in order to talk them into their product. They usually had an easy game. It was enough to drop a few buzzwords, present a hair-raising monetization and accurately convey where the bottom right-hand corner is in the contract.

The pricing of these tools is usually correspondingly clever. Often far too expensive for what it actually is. But cheap enough to avoid falling into the “capex trap”.

The result in companies is an almost uncontrollable patchwork of independent solutions. An archipelago.

There are constants: Vision & Strategy

A lot has undoubtedly changed in marketing and these changes are of course also challenging. What remains is that vision and strategy are crucial for good marketing. And this is exactly where many of today’s marketers fall short.

Instead of dealing with how marketing should feel for the customer and how best to go about it, most companies simply do marketing-as-usual. And the quick-wins are simply brushed off with tools. The result is irrelevant, standardized mush. In other words, exactly the opposite of what we want to achieve with marketing.

But having a vision is simply one of the most important things you can do in marketing. It makes your daily decisions easier and gives you differentiating features. It systematically prevents me-too marketing. Unless perhaps your vision is not to stand out in the market. There is nothing that does not exist.

Against off- vs. online thinking

What a few years ago was a cramped adherence to offline marketing measures is now a complete rejection of them. Make it easy for yourself and forget about these online and offline categories. Instead, concentrate on what your customers do or like to do.

Changed customer behavior

For example, I no longer know anyone who likes to be called at home. I also don’t know anyone who knows anyone who likes to be called. So they leave it alone.

I don’t know anyone who likes to click on banners and I don’t know anyone who knows anyone who likes to click on banners. So let it be.

I no longer know anyone who likes receiving newsletters and no one who knows anyone who likes receiving newsletters. So let it be.

I could play this game endlessly. And some of you will say to me, but statistic XY still says that it is quite clever to send out newsletters, for example. And you’re probably not wrong about that.

But they fail to recognize a central question: Do you want to sit on the dying branch or the rising branch? Do you want to move where there is momentum, or where things are running out of steam? It is clear that the things mentioned above, along with many others, are slowly but surely fading.

Attention

Advertising has always been about attention. In the past, people used to be distracted and disturbed so that you could draw attention to your advertising, but that is simply no longer the case today. People don’t like to have their attention distracted, nor do they like to engage with your content.

People’s attention today is on their smartphone screen. That’s where you need to be with your marketing. It’s amazing how few marketers have really grasped this.

There is a very simple way to avoid disturbing the customer: tell them stories via social media. I’m often asked, do I have to be on LinkedIn, do I have to do something with Facebook, is this Twitter mandatory, Snap-what? The answer is quite simple: you need to be everywhere where people who are relevant to you are. And that’s social media these days.

Telling stories

Telling a good story has always been the be-all and end-all of entertainment and image cultivation. The stories have to be fun, then we like them. It’s actually quite simple.

But you shouldn’t confuse this with humor. Of course humor is good, but it doesn’t have to be. A story can also be fun without using humor. For example, it can be particularly well told or particularly well researched or particularly well presented. It shouldn’t just be mediocre.

Okay. And why is that good now

Above all, it is good for you as a marketer. Because never before has it been so cheap and effective to do good marketing. And the general level has rarely been as low in recent decades as it is today. Easy game then.

For you, this means that you can position your brand with relatively little effort. That it is easy to assert yourself in the marketing competition. And social media has only just begun, because it takes social communication to a whole new level – both qualitatively and quantitatively.

I think now is the right time to develop an appropriate vision and strategy and redefine marketing for your company.