by Adam Gray | @AGSocialMedia | LinkedIn
I am passionate about social. I am passionate about business. I am passionate about the future. That’s why I often “rant” about things. I feel as if the soapbox was invented just for me!
As I sit here early one Saturday morning thinking about business, and despite the fact that I don’t have an MBA, I can see many companies on a kamikaze course at the moment, but they do not know it.
Let’s look at the facts.
Sales don’t work like they used to. Once upon a time sales was straightforward. You called, telephoned or emailed your prospect. You arranged to go and see them and then they would buy because either your product or you were good enough. But now it’s not that easy to get in front of people. They know more, because they self-educate. They want to be in the driving seat. There are more people involved in the decision-making process. It’s just much more difficult than it was.
Websites don’t work like they used to. It used to be the case that the purpose of digital marketing (and largely marketing as a whole) was to drive people to your website where they could browse around and talk themselves in to buying your product. Now they don’t want to visit your website. If they do visit they spend less time and view fewer pages. In short, they simply don’t believe your stories in the way that they used to.
Email is broken. Email marketing companies will tell you that email is a growth area because the number of emails sent each day is increasing. But that isn’t what it seems. You need to send more emails because there is a lower strike rate because people have become de-sensitised to email marketing. And because you need to send more…they get even more de-sensitised. You KNOW this is true because you trash most of your emails before reading them. I spend probably 20% of my “email time” unsubscribing from things I never signed up for or from things that I signed up for but never read. The advent of GDPR will make email marketing almost impossiblein its current state, further compounding the problems you already face.
Advertising doesn’t work. When was the last time you watched a TV ad? The truth is that we rarely believe the things we read in adverts any more. We flick though magazines looking for content rather than adverts. We have ad-blockers. Yes, the ad agencies tell us that share of voice, impacts, and impressions are meaningful statistics, but they’re not any more. The fact that 250,000 people MIGHT have seen your ad is irrelevant in a world where we are swamped by things to look at.
Content doesn’t work. Well, that’s actually not true. Content does work…just probably not in the way that you’re doing it. Content about your products, your features, your customers is nothing but a thinly veiled advert (see above). Content needs to add value. Content needs to empower the reader/viewer/listener. Content doesn’t not need to promote your products…because that AIN’T content as far as the customer is concerned.
Change is scary
So, given that those things are in fact true (which they seem to be) why are you still doing things in the same way that you always have? You need to think about how you like to be marketed to from a company that you don’t know. Think about the people and companies that you know and trust and rate. And then consider why you feel this way.
Then look at how your business behaves and ask yourself if it follows the same course. It doesn’t because very few do.
Change is hard. Change is scary. Change is unpredictable. But not changing is predictable and easy and safe…and you know where it leads.
You need to think about how your current activities are giving you a bigger slice of a shrinking pie and where this ultimately leads.
Remember the old joke.
Man: Doctor, doctor, my wife thinks she’s a chicken.
Doctor: You need to have her committed then.
Man: WE would…but we need the eggs!
Digital Leadership Associates: We are a Social Media Agency. We do three things: Social Media Strategy, Social Selling and Social Media Management. Drop us an email and let’s talk about how we can make an impact on your organisation.
