The Value of New Media Marketing

The initial appeal of online marketing was in the long tail .  With the marginal cost of the next 100,000 being extremely low, why wouldn’t you?  New media marketing is different.  New media isn’t about cost; it’s about value.  As Seth Godin observes, there are two ways for you to benefit from marketing: lower cost, or increase value.  New media marketing is the latter.

First, note that this is based on the concept: value = benefit / price

When we talk about value, we are talking about two things: value to you as a marketer, and value to your customers.  Traditional mass marketing increases value to you by lowering direct cost but forfeits personalization thereby decreasing benefit, and proportionally value, to potential customers.  This worked in the short term, but the sun is setting on that day.  Spam filters are getting better (yes, non-permission based marketing is  still considered spam by customers even if you do comply with all the can spam rules), and customers are getting smarter.

New media is different.  New media increases your value by increasing value to the customer.  It’s win-win !  New media is about cultivating a relationship with your customers, not managing it.  It’s about them wanting to hear more from you because you offer them value.  New media is not lower your price value, it’s increase your benefit value.  Increasing the benefit to your customers while keeping the costs fixed raises your value which improves response rates significantly which, as a result, increases the benefit to you.

The result:  fewer customers are worth more.  Much more.  Check out my blog posts, "The New Media Marketing Matrix " and "New Media Retention Marketing ", for more on that.