This is not some form of extreme sport to be shown on the ESPN farm sports channel 650, but rather it is the concept that marketing proficiency going forward is far more about corralling the right components together than one shinning action. This video is a lovely visual that you can use to describe your job in a clear metaphor to disbelieving product and sales managers.
We have talked about why we need to do it (multiple choices and differentiation for the influencer’s journey) and the vast array of choices in content needed. We have talked about the basic three cement platforms we have to start with (what we send, they find and we deliver in sales; the array of content; and the fact there are multiple influencers).
This is part two of three simple blogs that we hope will encourage you to take the right steps towards focusing your marketing towards a customer journey approach in our sales and marketing strategy.
“When are we going to start,” is a line from a great song about making LA a better city (Make it Better – Kelley James). We all know that the combination of the current economic climate and the compression of the immense changes we have been experiencing for the last three years means we have to change the way we invest in marketing. We have written a lot around this subject but we have had constant requests to wrap it into a few blogs. Hopefully each is no longer than a three minute read. Here are the links to the older collections, also available in the second volume of our blog book (in PDF format with bookmarks).
By now you must have seen or heard about Jon Stewart’s beat down of James Cramer (Mad Money and CNBC fame) last Thursday. This was the culmination of a week of chastising the money maven and his less than frank advice and energy about financial recommendations - recommendations that many citizens took in good faith from a TV channel supposedly known for its expert advice. Though this sounds bizarre, in our opinion it is a symbol for how people want to consume information (honestly and connected to their journey). A large number of the comments on the site talk about trust that was betrayed or expectations being consistently damaged by Cramer, clearly proving that delivering against promises is a big thing right now.
The film The Year of Living Dangerously was the only film I ever walked out of and within ten minutes realized what a terrible error that was. You just can’t get back into a film in the UK if you leave the theater. I would dread that we look at the end of 2009 and feel the same. We are about to enter a very chaotic year, a year of living dangerously.
There is a recent sci-fi movie called Jumper. Depending on whose reviews you most trust "They can go anywhere in the blink of an eye." In the UK Telegraph the review went as follows “A would-be snazzy sci-fi thriller about teleporting freaks and the agents trying to kill their fun.”