Tag: marketing

Marketing social objects

There are a couple of interesting posts (part one, part two) at gaping void on how the Internet (particularly, its social side) is changing marketing. As often with such analysis, the matters could be a little exaggerated and examples somewhat simplistic.  However, if you can handle those, you’ll sure find a few interesting points raised.

Let me get you started with a quote:

Now, when you buy something, you don’t phone up the company and order a brochure. You go onto Google and check out what other people- people like yourself- are saying about the product. In terms of communication, the company no longer has first-mover advantage. They don’t ask your company for the brochure until your product has already jumped through a series of hoops that SIMPLY WERE NOT there twenty years ago.
YOU NO LONGER CONTROL THE CONVERSATION. THEN AGAIN, MAYBE YOU NEVER DID.

How marketing research works

Here is a quote of an insightful comment from this Slashdot discussion:

IDC just released its predictions for 2008 with regards to data storage trends. Its research shows…

If you’ve ever been involved in an IDC, Gartner or whatever marketing discussion, you know that the “research” mainly consists of going from vendor to vendor (data storage vendors in this case) and asking what, in their wildest dreams, would the ideal demand curve look like. Then they charge for actually coming up with some supporting information to meet the vendors’ preferred conclusion, and release the whole thing to consumers in the hopes of stimulating some demand for the paying vendors. Very scientific.

The 3 Rules of Self-Marketing

If you are interested in self-marketing, Web Worker Daily has an excellent post with links to more.  Here are some quotes to give you the feeling:

Knowing how to market yourself will do more for your earnings and reputation than becoming better at what to do. Don’t believe it? Think about the people in your industry who make more money and are more famous than you. Do you think they really know more than you? Did they just happen to get lucky? Or were they savvy about how to promote themselves?

Start now. Why? Because this stuff takes time. Building blog circulation, getting people to notice you, cultivating your social network, working your way on to the speaker list at conferences good marketing can take years to pay off.

You’ll notice that I didn’t say these were 3 easy rules. Simple, yes, but not easy.