Marketing Practices- What to Believe?

El Gran Truco

I don’t know about you but time is one of life’s cruel tricks. When you are young you can’t wait to grow up and have your independence and experience the world and time seems to stand still. Then before you know it you’re grown up and time starts flying and you wish you could slow it down-And Can’t.

If you enjoy what you are doing and take every day that comes as a new adventure and opportunity to learn something and to make a difference in some way (in your life) you know what I am talking about.

Because then you understand that Knowledge is everything-The more you seek to learn and experience the better your life will be.

On the other hand if you are not happy with your life or your job then you are probably stuck in time and it seems to take forever to pass. If you are of this sort-GET UP?-WAKE UP? And do something about it-Please-You don’t know what you are missing and are just wasting the precious little time we are all given.

Reader Beware (Sometimes We Need a Reminder)

First of all, I would like to point out that I take exception with content that I read during the course of studying and doing research that does not reflect all the information that it could or should include that might lead the average reader with less experience in Marketing Technology to form the wrong opinion or conclusion.

Reader beware as in buyer beware is a term we all know. In the context of this article it is the collection of information necessary to be able to make a well informed decision and shame on you if you are not obtaining this information from a variety of sources and not taking one company’s or persons views, opinions or information as the only source on which to base your decisions.

Not that you don’t already know this but in today’s fast paced and sometimes deceptive media environment time once again may be weighing you down and it is sometimes easy to overlook, make a quick decision or take something as fact especially if that information is coming from a source that you trust.

Often there is limited time and/or resources to sufficiently research all the technology available and discussed and what it really can and cannot accomplish. This type of Content provides a source of information to inform and educate us on current trends and developments on products and strategies. Unfortunately, this content at times might not provide a well informed or objective view.

With today’s rapid advancement of technology the pressures to monetize and the desire to stay ahead of the competition, technology is often brought to market that has not been sufficiently developed or refine enough to do exactly what it is intended or proclaimed to do.

As an example I will refer you to my last article, A Bad Customer Experience - The Cost? - One Cent , where I bring up the following point concerning Marketing automation software.

Marketing automation technology today is evolving but still finds it difficult, especially in B2C, to be able to recognize that people are complex humans that have many different reasons for any particular action they perform.

Every customer’s experience is different and to assume or generalize what a customer’s intentions are can be an ill-advised and hazardous undertaking.

Who and What do You Believe?

It wasn’t too long ago, just last year in fact that the marketing world was advocating that the days of pushing your message on consumers to gain their attention was quickly fading and inbound marketing, pulling consumers through engaging them with quality content was taking prominence and statistics were showing the benefits.

Last year Brian Conlin shared this in an article “It’s no secret that content marketing has become ubiquitous. After all, 93 percent of B2B marketers use it, a bump of 2 percentage points from 2012. However, just how effective content marketing is might surprise you. Despite costing 62 percent less than traditional marketing, content marketing generates about three times as many leads.” 59 Killer Content Marketing Stats: 2014 Edition—via B2C.

If fact if you think about it and tell me if I am wrong, Triggered email, Retargeting and Geotracking are all push marketing disguised behind different names. And many people are pushing back.

Consumers are inundated with all the ways that exist today to get in front of them and others are developing technology to counter this with technology like ad blockers that according to a very recent article at Chief Marketer by Zach Schapira, “In the long-term if pervasive ad blocking shrinks the supply of sellable inventory, publishers may try to make up for the lost revenue by raising CPMs for advertisers.”

With all the technology that is being thrown at us today it is imperative that you have the means through trusted employees, friends or consultant who are on top of the subject you are researching and who can advise you on what you are researching can do and can’t do and what if any drawbacks there may be and if it would even benefit you.

Another example of how confusing things can really get in this recent article entitled “Is Link-Building Dead?” by Marie Haynes Founder of HIS Web Marketing and posted at Search Engine Watch exemplifies how what one person says can be interpreted in so many different ways.

Think for Yourself and what is Best for You

We are all conditioned from the time we are born by society. In one sense, is necessary to have a set of rules on how to behave to be able to maintain a sense of order and basically we have little choice but to conform to what is accepted behavior. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it can be confining and controlling if we accept everything blindly and never question anything.

Marketing companies create ads and content that condition us into taking on too much debt, instilling a must have or keep up with the Jones’ mentality (conspicuous consumption) or the need for all the latest trending products and before we know it, we are living lives created for us by the powers that be many times without our conscious participation.

Keeping up with the pace of change in Digital (Integrated) Marketing is surely one ours and industry’s biggest challenges. You no sooner have implemented one technology another comes along, sometimes from the same company, that claims to be bigger and better than the one you just implemented which may be true or a lot of marketing hype. But do you really need it? Here is where you need to make a well informed and research decision.

So don’t follow the crowd follow find what will work best for you and know the facts and you will be a lot better off for it.

William Cosgrove