Harvard Business Review: The death of traditional marketing

Traditional marketing methods, including advertising, public relations, brand management and corporate media, have failed. A lot of people in this business don't seem to realize that their department or organization is left with a shell--and we can recognize that fact in many ways.

First, buyers are no longer paying attention. Research has confirmed that buyers ' decisions are largely unrelated to traditional marketing communications. Buyers usually use their own set of ways to obtain product and service information, the most common is the network, and of course, the source of information outside the enterprise, such as people's oral presentation or customer feedback.

Second, CEOs are less patient. According to a 2011 London Fournaise Marketing Group survey of 600 CEOs and policymakers, 73% said their CMO (Chief marketing officer) lacked commercial credibility and could not drive revenue growth. 72% say a lot of people just yell for money but can't explain how these inputs generate new revenue. 77% say they talk to you every day about brand equity and other similar things, but they can't relate these jobs to real market valuations or other important financial indicators.

Third, in the growing social media environment, traditional marketing not only plays a role, but also has no meaning. We can think of this: a company employs a lot of people, including employees, agents, consultants and partners-they are not buyers and their interests are not exactly the same as the buyer-so how do we want to use this group of people to persuade buyers to use their hard-earned money for promotional products? In the social media world, traditional marketing has failed. Look at Facebook, they're still talking about marketing.

In fact, this kind of discussion is a bit superfluous, because the traditional marketing method can not play a role anywhere.

As a result, many people are thinking about how to replace the outdated model-as if to speculate on the possible future of the marketing model. But in fact, we already know exactly what the new model looks like, and many companies are starting to use it. Here is the key point:

Restore community Marketing. The rational use of social media can accelerate the tendency of buyers to seek a buying experience in their local communities. For example, when considering buying a new roof, an LCD TV or looking for a good surgeon, it is impossible to talk to a salesman or read through a company's web site. In general, we all ask our neighbors or friends--this is our own network of relationships in which everyone is an object of inquiry.

Companies should use their social media efforts to replicate the community-directed buying experience as much as possible. Social media companies like Facebook should make it their forte-by expanding the consumer's own network of relationships, allowing more people to offer their buying experience for a product or service.

A new company called Zuberance, for example, will allow loyal clients to easily and cheerfully help them advertise on social platforms. Once a customer considers himself to be a "referrer" in an investigation, they will immediately receive a form inviting them to fill in a usage or referral on some social networking sites, and when they are done, zuberance will transfer it to a designated website and then "recommend" Social Circle will soon know what he thinks of the company.

Find people who can influence customers. Many companies are spending a lot of their resources on people who are looking for external influences-those who are popular on websites or social media. In fact, the better way is to find and develop people who can influence the target customers, and let them help advertise. This involves a new customer value that, unlike customer lifecycle values, is not based solely on customer purchases. In addition to money, we have many other standards to measure customer value. For example, how much impact does the customer's relationship network have on the company? Or how much respect a customer receives.

One of the users of Microsoft's MVP (the most valuable expert) is someone called Mr. Excel. His site can sometimes exceed Microsoft Excel interface-which means he has a big point for Microsoft. So Microsoft began to disclose some internal information to Mr. Excel and let him try out their new products in advance. In return, Excel and other MVP help Microsoft open up new markets, which can save a lot of money.

Help them build social capital. Practitioners of new community-oriented marketing may reflect on the value proposition of customers who use MVP ("Customer Defender" or "star Customer"). In the past, marketing often received customer support with money rewards, discounts or other Hui. And the new marketing approach is to create social capital for advocates and influential people: to help them build social relationships, to improve their reputations and to acquire new knowledge-everything that these influencers crave.

The National Instrument Company (NI) has used a special creative approach to work with their customers--it the company's middle managers. By providing them with strong research and financial proof, these managers can demonstrate NI's strategic advantage to their senior executives, and NI can therefore reach the top management level. At the same time, the reputation of middle managers will also improve, they will be considered as strategic thinkers, can bring new ideas to the top.

Involve your clients in your solution. One of the most compelling examples is the nonprofit sector. A few years ago, the national teen-smoking population had reached alert values, so Florida State began rethinking their 10-year effort to ease the problem-what would be harder than persuading teens to quit, even Malkom Gradweldu said it was impossible. But Florida solved the problem by building a community that could interact with one another. They find influential people in teens, such as student leaders, athletes, or seemingly cool kids who either don't smoke or want to quit. They will then ask the students to participate and help them instead of just conveying a message.

The new plan brought 600 teenagers to the summit on teen smoking, where they told officials that efforts to stop smoking in the past were ineffective because of the dire warnings that smoking was harmful to health or that smoking was bad enough to impress children. At the time, the youngsters were brainstorming out new solutions: Angry at tobacco company bosses for documents that replaced dead older customers with young people (often dying of lung cancer), they formed a SWAT team that organizes train trips, workshops, Sell compassionate and other attractive activities to communicate their message to local communities. In the end, the number of teenage smokers in Florida dropped by almost half from 1998 to 2007, in addition to the nasty counter-attack of big tobacco lobbies, the biggest victory for anti-teen smoking so far.

In other words, Florida has won half of its "customers" against teen smoking from rivals that are far more powerful. Their success stems from their use of the buyer's most effective buying motives: peer influence.

That's what you can do. Traditional marketing has become ineffective, with peer influence and community-oriented new marketing tools already on the stage, and through real customer relationships, it will create sustained growth for businesses.

Source: Translation