Continuing in the vein of addressing common problems with fitting our old mentality and systems to the new marketing landscape, I got thinking about how we actually write a plan. How do you accurately plan and record all the individual interactions and conversations that make up the interactive or social part of the modern marketing plan? I mean you can't "schedule" taking part in a conversation can you?! Or can you?
You can if you initiate it! One of my newest team members was searching for information to use for a paper he wanted to write around his event but he couldn't find anything weighty enough on a particular subtopic. He posted a question to the relevant LinkedIn community and within an hour received 9 helpful responses.
Aside from finishing his paper more easily, he started a conversation with 9 people passionate enough about the subject matter to invest time in helping someone in their community learn. He "planned" to send them a copy of the finished content to say thanks. A couple of them asked about the event. A relationship was born and providing he continues to nurture it through "planned" interactions, he has created a handful of potential customers and advocates who were previously unaware of us and how we serve the needs of our market.
To a certain extent we have to roll with the punches in this new environment and accept that a lot of what we do will be reactive and we'll have to record it after the fact. Which raises a question I have often heard asked, do we need to record it? After all its just one short exchange with maybe one other person right? Wrong.
It is more important than ever to record these interactions because they are far more personal than the 10,000 piece direct mail shot of yesterday. Recipients of old-style communications for the most part knew they were mass volume and impersonal. Participants in our new marketing are just that, they are not passive and they are talking to you. Not a big faceless company, you personally. And they expect to be remembered.
Don't believe me? You must have met someone at some point (maybe at a party or other social gathering) who on second meeting can't remember the first and introduces themselves again. Maybe you were offended, maybe you just thought them a little stupid, but I guarantee you didn't think "wow this is someone I want to get know better and spend more time with".
So we shouldn't be looking at how to fit the new marketing into the plan, but how we can totally change the fundamentals of what we consider essential to a "plan" to fit with the new marketing. The plan is broken and there is no glue in the world that is going to put it back together again.
Hey Emma, Great post thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI think the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
The planning and processes of marketing are both in a state of flux, throwen into chaos by the new unmarketing and social media.
You say roll with the punches, I say give up control, control was an illusion. You now have to interact with people on line, can't hide behind the mailhouse anymore....
Can you schedule time to do it? Yep, You must. This is key, to be effective schedule an hour (or whatever) a day or week, to be active on social media sites, to write that blog post. Despite the chaos, discipline in how you manage your interaction in the conversation is key.
This new marketing is all about creating awareness, participating in the conversation... glad to see you and all the great IQPC marketing managers actively thinking about it!