Traditional Marketing is Dead
That’s right! You heard me. Traditional marketing is dead.
Perhaps you heard this already and it isn’t so shocking but, speaking from experience, there are many marketing executives still clinging to their book of Ogilvy on Advertising while viewing social media as a 
passing fad. The reality is just the opposite, although it is not to say that the old way doesn’t still have some importance, but how we do good marketing today is radically different than five, ten, and fifteen years ago.
At this point, you are expecting me to say the “internet changed everything” and drone on and on about this fact, but I won’t. Yes, the internet has transformed everything but what changed is where the attention is going. No longer do you find car passengers sitting and staring out the window on long drives. Instead, they are heads down on their smartphone chatting with friends, watching videos, and engaging on social media. No longer do you have the whole family sitting in front of the television on a Thursday night viewing Friends. This is a significant change, and that begs the question, are you engaging with the audience of today?
To engage with today’s audience, you need to be using social media. If you are not, or not using it effectively, you have already lost. I would say most businesses need to be driving a social media strategy that is more aligned with an entertainment company than an old school marketing department. Why is that? Because attention spans have never been lower. In a 2016 survey by Microsoft, it was found that adult attention spans have dropped to 8 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000. A goldfish has an attention span of 9 seconds.
In a 2016 survey, researchers found that American adults watched 19 minutes less television than they did in 2014 and that trend is getting wider. This change has prompted many top advertisers to up their game with more compelling content. However, this is merely raising the bar. Authenticity has become the real game changer, even more than pretty images on a TV screen.
Are you authentic? Unfortunately, some people aren’t. In this video with Senator Elizabeth Warren, you see someone trying way too hard to connect with a certain demographic. Don’t do this!
What is authentic? Check out this video that includes Gary Vaynerchuck talking about authenticity from Entrepreneur magazine.
Notice how he explains his point of view. Even though he is talking about this very topic, his delivery aligns to who he is as a person. This can be seen in this video and across this social media streams.
Can you see the difference? When you combine authenticity with a compelling story about who you are and what you represent it is easy to connect with your target audience.
So how do you become successful in digital marketing? The easy way is to hire a digital marketing agency such as Blair Allen Agency who specializes in social media, web design, SEO, and email marketing. If you want to make growth happen for your business, here are three tips to get started.
- Know your audience – Research your buyers and prospects and understand who is currently following you on social channels. Understanding your audience is the first step at connecting and capturing the clients you want to build your business with.
- Practice makes perfect – None of us will ever be perfect but learning to use the technology will help you gain an understanding of how it can best help you. An over-reliance on others to do your work can put you at a disadvantage long-term. So get out that smartphone and start Tweeting, taking pictures, and documenting your experience!
- Engage your customers – If you know your customers tend to engage more on LinkedIn than Twitter, then focus your marketing and promotion on LinkedIn. If your audience is comprised of book club members, then written word will probably work better than making a bunch of videos on Youtube.
These may seem like some obvious tip but they are the cornerstone of engaging your audience with authenticity and growing your brand in the digital age.
Author: Michael Moreno, CSO at Blair Allen Agency