Is Old-school Marketing Killing your Business?

Some marketing methods are quite dated and drastically less effective nowadays than they were ten years ago. The guideline of ‘Marketing is about sending the right message, to the right person, at the right time’ applies on a whole different level. It has occurred to us that there are still many old-school marketers out there who are wasting their marketing budget.

Old-School Marketing Methods

30 Years ago, the concept of a door-to-door salesman worked. People’s properties were open, almost inviting outsiders to enter their premises. There is nothing that stops the door-to-door salesman from going about his business today, except for the high fences, burglar alarms and other tight security measures. There is no access for salesmen to enter a property and interact with potential clients; it takes much more time and effort. Perhaps these security measures are a metaphor for advertising. People are guarding themselves against the intrusion of interruption marketing. They are no longer interested in products and services being pushed on them. Old-school marketing is killing your business because it makes use of weak strategies and in doing so, wastes money.

It must be said that advertising is not thoroughly dead, but it is thoroughly different. The majority of product and service advertising will not work unless it is specifically targeted. For example; advertising a new mountain bike in a mountain biking magazine. The reader of said magazine will most likely be interested in the product offered.

Some other outdated actions include cold calling, press releases and concepts such as above- and below the line marketing. Back in the day, advertising was a manner of providing information to the public. This is no longer necessary, thanks to Google. People are more than capable of obtaining information on available products and services themselves – they see the actions above as a form of spam. It is safe to say that we are no longer in a phase where we refer to it as ‘digital marketing’.  Digital Marketing is the new Marketing, not just a below-the-line subset of the practise.

As Seth Godin explains it…

9 Years ago, Godin identified two types of marketing, namely Permission Marketing and Interruption (or Traditional) Marketing. With the former being a method that works today, here is how Godin explains it: “Permission marketing is the privilege (not the right) of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who actually want to get them.” Interruption Marketing is loosely described as an intrusion of space. Where these would be radio advertisements, TV ads, billboards and the like, Permission Marketing is related to the consumer’s own online search for a product or service. Over time, marketers earn the right to present their products to the consumer, building a relationship of trust with the client – which both modern and traditional marketers know is the most valuable asset of all.

Godin also points out how easily Permission Marketing ties in with digital marketing. It is no longer a one-way chat. Client relationships are personalised – which also means that you need to offer clients a choice in how much you communicate with them and in which format they prefer to receive these communications.

So what is the solution?

Accepting and moving away from the marketing that we once knew is a huge mind shift. Adopting the new way of going about your business is difficult. But the fact of the matter is this; new strategies are easy to keep track of, targeted, updatable in real-time and that makes it trendy.

Tips on how to make the switch:

1. Swop your road-side advertisements for an Adwords campaign. Why? Because it is targeted at users who are actively looking for your service, not just at anybody who sees it.
2. Swop soliciting for guerrilla marketing. Instead of intruding on people’s lives, hand out promotional gifts, or offer competitions. This tactic gives the consumer something tangible to remember you by.
3. Swop surveys for social media. With analytics, you can monitor your buyer behaviour without asking users to tell you about it.
4. Swop key-wording for content strategies. Build commitments around valuable content.

Advertising, as it is, has turned into a conversation. Conversation is not something you can impose on someone, they need to reciprocate and take part.