I was asked to participate in the Future of Marketing Virtual Conference the other day – it ran yesterday and today – which was comprised of 60 marketing thinkers given 60 seconds each to comment on what they thought the future of marketing was all about.
On my end, the audio was a bit garbled, unfortunately, but hopefully the message got out.
If it didn’t, this is what I said, more or less:
I’ve got bad news.
The future of marketing isn’t about tools. Sure, we’re able to collaborate, communicate, pontificate and proliferate faster than we’ve ever been able to before, but if all we’re doing is allowing ourselves to do the wrong thing faster, this isn’t a bright future.
The future of marketing isn’t about tools. It’s about the discipline to use these bright new tools correctly. It’s about knowing before-hand that your social media has a positive ROI because you’ve measured it. You know. This isn’t a cultural question, it’s four function math. It’s about launching a new logo that you know is the right one because you tested it, rigorously, in front of a statistically relevant number of your real customers and not just in front of a smattering of people who raised their hands on your Facebook page.
Maybe the future of marketing is really about knowing stuff. Because unless we know what we’re doing and have the discipline to employ these fast new do-it-yourself tools correctly, we’ll just be making the wrong decisions from the comfort of our offices. It isn’t about tools. It’s about the mind of the toad using them.
*****************************************************
OK, here’s what I actually said:
I’d encourage you to listen to the whole thing – you can register for free to get the entire conference here. My piece starts at about 33:14 on the recording.
*****************************************************
Why is this an important message to take to heart? Here’s a few reasons:
1. When you rely on the tools to do your thinking, you get sloppy. Yes, we can do things that used to cost tens of thousands of dollars very cheaply now. This is great. The not so great part is that we tend to think that this smaller price tag requires less of our critical thinking now. We get sloppy as a result. And when this sloppy thinking is driving a critical part of our marketing strategy, disaster looms.
2. Non-sampling error – the “garbage in, garbage out” phenomenon – is very real. It gives us great comfort to do statistically relevant analysis on purely subjective fluff, for some reason. And in the words of a former statesman, “Do not call an elephant a mouse unless it gives you great comfort to know you are being trampled to death by a mouse.”
3. We love speed and we love shiny new tools that make it all look so simple. Both are seductive. And while speed can be a critical competitive advantage, it can also send you Wylie Coyote-like off a cliff of your own creation. It’s never a case of being fast or being slow. It’s a case of being right or being wrong.
When I get the link to the actual recording, which may differ a bit in actual content but not in tone from the above, I’ll update.
Regards.
Tools are good once you have a good plan laid out behind them.
Tools don’t lead a business, a consistent, well thought out strategy leads a business, and tools can help you apply it.
Amen to that, Gabriele – am finding an over-reliance on tools, on do-it-yourself ease-of-use from-the-comfort-of-your-Aeron-chair over-simplicity coming from marketers, and along with all that easy of use comes the insidious concept of ‘injected change,’ or ‘non-sampling bias’ – all those things that go wrong that you didn’t predict or plan for.
You “test” your logo with the hand-raisers on Facebook, but fail to understand that you’re only talking to a tiny minority of users, all of whom happen to represent an overly vocal 1% slice – while you ignore the 99% who actually buy your stuff. You have the numbers, but you have the wrong people comprising those numbers.
Hope my 60 seconds saved 1 or 2 people! Spread the word!
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mark Gallagher and StephenDenny, StephenDenny. StephenDenny said: My chat at the Future of Marketing "60-Speakers-In-60-Minutes" Conf – It Isn't About the Tools. Sorry. | Stephen Denny http://bit.ly/cm5sn4 […]
I actually never put much faith into Facebook fans, I mean, they are kind of a weird fan base since it’s so easy to press a Like button. It’s not really representative of a real customer.
Thanks Steven for the message. I agree completely. It has been a struggle to get the ROI right for some people. Would love to see and hear how you figure out the right approach so you can focus on what works. I have heard it said more than once, “Good strategy is knowing what not to do.” Would love to be able to get that focused and have an ROI to back it up. Takes looking beyond the tools and thinking at higher strategic level. How do you get people to see that from your experience?
Gabriele: agree completely – they’re wonderful, don’t get me wrong, but I wouldn’t be making business decisions based on the qualitative feedback of the 1% who care to respond. And you’re correct in that it’s awfully easy to click ‘like’ – which tends to make their comments a bit less projectable. Thanks!
Tom: thanks for your note – a big part of this discussion is deciding what constitutes “knowing.” The Gap didn’t know its new logo was the right one or not, so when the social media push-back happened, they panicked and pulled it (probably for the best, but what do I know!). I spoke about this at length a few posts ago and described what they should have done, which was based on many years of doing this sort of work right when I was at Sony – when Sony was the #1 ranked brand in the world.
The do-it-yourself tools we have available to us are making us lazy. It’s cheap and easy so doing it wrong doesn’t cost a lot out of pocket, but the opportunity costs are huge. The idea of ‘non-sampling error’ is a big one. It’s easy to get lots of people who will respond via social media networks, but these aren’t representative of the buying public, many of whom aren’t here on Twitter. We, as marketers, need to focus on creating projectable insights: insights that can be accurately extrapolated to the rest of the market. Otherwise, we’re marketing to that one guy with the opinion and the hundred others who don’t have one but are willing to listen to the guy who does. To them, it isn’t worth thinking about – but to us, it’s “data.” That’s dangerous. Thanks!