New Media Marketing Mentality

If the people who you market to had the option, would they choose to see your ad or ignore you all together?  Think about this the next time you send a mass email or put together a direct piece.  Seriously, think about it.  If you know in advance that 97% – 99% of your "customers" are not interested in what you have to say (given a 1% – 3% conversion rate) maybe you should rethink your strategy.  This is where New Media Marketing comes in.

New Media is about giving your customers what they want.  It’s about forming a mutually beneficial relationship and cultivating it long-term.  Gone are the days of putting your commercial on TV and watching your stock sell out.  Gone are the days of purchasing ad space on the yahoo! home page or in the New York Times as the cornerstone of your marketing campaign.  Even Google’s AdWords, while still a great option, can’t compete with the ROI of a successful New Media marketing campaign.

Building on an observation by Chris Anderson , traditional (push) marketing is a dictatorship, current practices in CRM are a benevolent dictatorship, and New Media marketing is a democracy.  As Chris puts it, "We don’t tweet to built Twitter, we tweet to suit ourselves. We blog because we can…."  Customers, or as I like to call them, people, friend you because they get something out of the relationship.  Once accepted as a friend, it’s your job as a marketer to cultivate that relationship and maintain the boundries of trust.

I grew up in my town, so I’ve lived here for years.  There’s a local pizza place, Sal’s, where when you you walk in the front door the owner or his son instantly recognizes you, says "hello", and knows what you normally order.  They have a cut out coupon on the box so, after 12 pies, you get one large plain for free (which is great in today’s economic climate).  I grew up on Sal’s pizza.  I could go there for the rest of my life and be happy.  Recently, however, I noticed they’ve been cutting costs at my expense.  The crust got thinner, there’s about two inches between the edge of the pizza and the first bit of cheese, there’s not enough sauce  so it dries out quickly, and the "large" salad is a small salad anywhere else.  Now I go to Carmine’s, a competitor right down the road from Sal’s.  Last week Carmine catered my son’s party for 75 people.  They all said the food was excellent.

What’s the point?  Abuse the relationship with your customer, and they will cut you off.  What could be a phenomenal lifetime value can quickly go to zero.  And you won’t win them back so long as the competitor down the street gives them no reason to leave.