Interruption is dead. It has been for a while. Which isn’t to say it’s gone – you’ll get interrupted/distracted/bothered in one way or another hundreds of times today with a commercial message. As an effective marketing technique for most businesses though, screaming for attention is DOA.
If you’re like me, who came of age in the era of cable television, it’s a hard fact to wrap your mind around. From the time I first remember being peddled Lucky Charms to last night’s 2 a.m. infomercial, the change I’ve noticed more than anything is the change in volume. Always louder, more pleading, more desperate.
Push advertising isn’t sexy anymore. It’s pretty sad and desperate in fact. I always think of the local car dealerships that still treat their customers like dumb ass hicks with bogus overstock claims and imaginary city fines for parking their wares on the grass. “We screwed up again!”
That’s why people hate advertising, hate aggressive, intrusive attempts to get their attention – and I’m with them. The fact that we’ve learned to turn off our TVs from time to time hasn’t helped the problem at all. The industry of interruption and distraction is everywhere.
We’re on the run all the time, trying to filter the spam, the scams, and the bullshit. Scanning for what’s important and relevant to us. Trying our best to filter out what’s not.
I hate this mass market, big media noise as much as the next person, but I’m a marketer. I live with myself because I’ve tried never to interrupt anyone with some pushy marketing spam. I care about solving the mundane and the monumental problems of life of those who are looking and seeking for their problems to be solved.
I gain their ear because most often they come looking for me, rather than the other way around; and when they find me, I try to gain their trust, listen to their problems, and help them get to the other side. (I say looking for me, but in fact my prospects rarely think of me since I am focused upon them and their problems, not upon myself.)
I hope to share part of that process with you on this blog. I’m far from an expert, an insight which gives me some competitive advantage at times. I also value questioning and testing my assumptions whenever possible, which offers me great competitive advantages at most all times.
To grow your business, it is critical to market your business effectively and profitably. The only surefire way to do so is to continuously test and track your results so your marketing message improves over time. This means you must use scientific principles and statistical methods to test your assumptions whenever possible.
If that seems a bit clinical then consider this complementary notion: to truly thrive, a modern business must also be embodied with authenticity, passion and soul.
Good people want to buy from good people and to be treated with respect. Help your customers be confidant they have made the right decision while providing them a cool, emotionally satisfying experience at the same time. Only then will they evangelize for your business and provide it with the momentum it truly needs to take off.
That’s a big order. It’s the big picture. Businesses that get their marketing right don’t worry about sales because revenue is an output of our marketing activities: a metric, the key performance metric, no doubt, but an output.
All that stuff that comes before is marketing. For me, it’s the grand unified theory of business. Its success is self evident in a thriving, healthy business.
