Tags: B2B, B2C, Management, targeting

With the way things are going, surely marketing is just glorified customer service in the digital age, providing answers to prospects’ questions. Prospects and customers seem just to want what they want and not be put off by all this silly marketing stuff. The old days of deciding on your messages and getting them out there into people’s brains have long gone haven’t they?

Everything you see nowadays is about people power. Even Sir Simon Cowell changed the format of X Factor to only use the public vote to remove each of the Bunch of Ollys this year. If he has stopped pushing his messages, where does that leave the rest of us marketers?

We’ll do a full X Factor analysis another day, it’s a text book marketing case study – and no, I don’t mean it’s about the marketing of text books.

People still love to be given ideas and recommendations. Sales made on the basis of a friend down the pub are still more common than marketers would like to admit, but we all know from marketing college that word of mouth is the most popular medium in the purchase process. What’s that really mean? What is word of mouth? Well, it’s ‘advice from someone who probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about but they’re a friend of yours. Yes, Rule 116 of relationships: Friendship Earns More Points Than Knowledge.

The big selling point here is that the friend down the pub is perceived as independent, an objective voice in a sea of marketing bias. They’re not objective of course but Rule 116 deals with that. They seem to be objective. And perception is reality, e.g. Cheryl Cole appears to be singing, therefore people believe she is.

So, pulling messages from a database of FAQs seems to be more objective than marketers pushing you a message. Even though, yes you’re ahead of me, all together now, “even though, it’s the same message”.

What’s all this mean, I hear you say. It means that you need to get a damn good set of FAQs and product information in the places where you prospects are, and focus your push marketing on brand building, and promoting the places where ‘objective information’ can be found. It’s that old Rule 173 ‘The best salesman has sold it to you before you realise he’s a salesman’. Jazzy.

PS Send us your nominations for the Most Effective Marketing Ideas For 2010. Could be simple like ‘go and visit your customers in person’ or wierdly technical like ‘use google goggles’. Laterz.