Marketing Has Changed PT.1
Marketing Has Fundamentally Changed Forever
- Most businesses don’t realise.
- Most experts have no idea.
- The same old stuff that has been advised, shared and used for decades will no longer work.
- There are no rules anymore.
- There is no one-system for all.
- Wake up, make changes – big changes - or sink.
I started to notice changes maybe five years ago. They had been taking place long before then but it had become more than obvious then.
What was working was now no longer working. The old systems, the tricks, the techniques and the absolute fundamentals of marketing were no longer working where they used to always work.
The feedback from entrepreneurs like yourself supported that conclusion and awareness that massive changes had imperceptibly been sweeping through the world of business without the world of business taking notice.
Recently when asked a majority of those questioned replied that they didn’t trust marketing people. Marketing people had now adopted the role of the car salesman or they would do anything, say anything, promise anything and anything but deliver in their results. The results have become impossible for those that are simply selling car – selling – and have no real idea of what takes place during the process of buying.
Buying is a real process that includes so many invisible actions before any buyer arrives at you. The initial idea they have, the thought, the search, the mind process and many other things that take place before the buyer decides to buy from you. I’ll talk about that later on.
And recent years in the industry of marketing have been destroyed by the abuse of power handed to marketers where they have had the ability to blind people like you with what can appear like magic. The magic in fact is usually a simply process that hasn’t yet reached the eyes and minds of the mainstream. The marketer has simply read what to do in the instructions and is doing it. The main problem is the promise they present when doing such magical arts.
Yet.
The problems for marketers go far deeper.
Here’s why.
Marketing assumes that buyers want to buy and yes they don want to buy. Persuasion has always been the force behind selling. TV is a great example of that as are some older adverts. Persuasion is a set standard of buying from the mind of the seller yet here is a reality check – you cannot force anyone into buying anything unless they want to buy. Persuasion will not force the cash from anyone and when it does – and sometimes it does – a refund request is asked.
I remember years ago my own brother coming back from Spain to announce he had done something stupid. He had signed up for what was then called a time-share apartment at £400 per month. This was clearly higher than his wages yet the experience of going through the time-share process persuaded him into buying. Thankfully the legal process was such that a refund of his deposit was eventually returned. And if the buyer does refund you can bet they’ll never be back again. I wonder how many people smile and say it seemed like a good idea at the time. The reality is it was never a good idea it was simply manipulation through persuasion.
Habits have gone through a huge overhaul. Now with the powerful of a smart phone we have selective and addictive thumbing over and past your marketing materials. I used to tell my clients they had 3-seconds to grab a client via their computer screen. Today I doubt if you have one second.
The addiction is huge. You’ve seen people everywhere walking around, sitting down, on public transport and even with a lover with their faces fixed firmly on the screen before them. It’s like a scene from s zombie movie. Some marketers see this as marketing nirvana after all if they stare at the screen you can gently slip an advert passed them and they will click on it. No and here is why. Addicts are conscious of nothing whilst being conscious of what serves them in the way they see service in that moment. Addicts also have selective choice playing its part like all viewers have that choice. It is anything but a marketers dream. The addicts can be so tuned in or so zoned out he selling opportunities is very few.
And those that are just thumbers, they scroll left or right or up or down or anyway the screen will go. In that moment the only action they care about is that they are taking an action with little reason with their thumbs. Today in my coffee shop a guy stands in front of me. He takes out his phone, opens the screen hovers his thumb above a small panel and does nothing but put his phone back into his pocket. Eventually he touches a panel. Facebook, email or whatever, he thumbs very quickly through everything without seeing anything and eventually stops. He repeats the same process until his coffee is ready. Once he picks up his coffee before he walks to the chair to sit he opens his phone so he is thumbing as he walks.
In the coffee shop itself I would guess around 70% in here right now are staring at a screen. All addicts or thumbers! Either way do you think marketing to minds that have their minds on something or nothing is a workable idea?
You’ll say no yet marketing men are still pushing the idea that these are perfect people to sell to. They’re not.
Another things with Thumbers is this – they are extremely protective of their digital space. They don’t want to be invaded with ads in what they feel is private and their own place. Their place is their screen in front of their eyes. This is their place where no one else is allowed. It can feel private almost secret. The last thing they want is what marketing men can advise which is to hit them in their pocket directly into their smart phones.
We have to remember people aren’t stupid and can see right through it when they are being treated as stupid.
The old way of marketing could get away with treating people as stupid and to be sold to yet those were the days of the uninformed. Now people are smart as their phones suggest and have been made smarted by the huge volume of instant education online.
If you want to sell more there is a new way to di it and it is nothing like the old way. Marketing as you might know it is dead. I believe there are things coming that will make anyone in the marketing service industry almost extinct yet the marketing industry will have you thinking others for – as long as they can.
There are huge changes coming yet there are huge changes already here. I’ll go through more in Part 2.
Pt. 2 coming.
Alan Forrest Smith