The Road to Ultramodern Marketing
Technology. Integration. Intelligence.
In the world of marketing, you’ll find that not all marketers are created equally. Different focuses, different styles, different approaches. The point has been reached where, to say “I’m a marketer” is about as broadly-defined as saying “I’m a business person.” Likewise, the evolutionary stage of marketing that’s utilized varies greatly — and the difference comes down to technology and intelligence.
Tech and consumer intelligence is what could — when applied to the equation— transform traditional marketing to modern marketing and eventually to ultramodern marketing. There are many criteria that separate these these stages, but generally defined…
Traditional Marketing, I consider to be your pre-email, pre-internet, broad form of generating inbound demand — usually focused more on brand strategy. It normally involves executing general messaging to wide and targeted audience then hoping for a returned action. Channels normally include print ad, commercial, direct mail, telemarketing.
Modern Marketing involves more technology along with traditional efforts, and utilizes digital marketing communication channels that enables executing specifically-tailored messaging to targeted audiences and tracking basic, meta results. Instead of throwing a small ball into a large crowd and hoping someone catches it like in traditional marketing, it’s like throwing a larger ball in to a smaller crowd of people that you feel are more likely to catch it. Using tech, you’re able to gather strong potential customers and strategically place yourself in front of them using outbound and inbound strategy like email, mobile, web, social media and others.
Ultramodern Marketing uses both traditional and digital communications channels to reach targeted, segmented audiences. Three main outliers that make the process ultra are:
- Integration all communications channels together.
- Automation of efforts the run through the channels.
- Utilizing insights to optimize the process.
Email marketing, social media, website strategy, event strategy, SEM, advertising and PR are all examples of main means of accessing the market. Modern marketers use these channels, while ultramodern marketers use them and tie them all together to leverage robust insights.
The ultramodern marketer could pull up a contact profile in their database and tell you what communications they received and what the actions were; What email links have they clicked? Which of our tweets did they share? Which of our events did they attend? How did they find us? This kind of intelligence is what leads to smart marketing and a streamlined process which is followed by strong awareness where it counts, targeted lead generation, and growth.
What ultra stage marketers have in common…
Goals. Clearly defined goals with a process of how to achieve them most efficiently should be square one for any marketer.
Multichannel digital communication. Great marketers utilize all means of connecting digitally with their audience, along with relevant traditional approaches. They are not stand alone efforts, but each channel is a piece of the campaign puzzle that fits together in the overall effort.
A robust marketing technology platform. A batch-and-mail tool will often cap marketers out at the modern stage. Well-rounded tools like Marketo, Act-On, SalesFusion are more than a means to broadcast email, they are the central hub for marketers to tie all of their channels together, manage integrated campaigns and track results.
Analyze and interpret. Using technology to develop insights is important. Once insights are received, they need to be used to optimize marketing strategy. What’s working and receiving response? What strategy doesn’t seem to be working and should be retooled or scrapped from the marketing plan?
Leverage insights. Along with using insights to enhance overall market intelligence and strategy, insights are used to optimize the approach. Knowing your contacts demographic data, where they found you, how they interact with your marketing, what they seem interested in buying, and where their predicted buying intent stands compared to your other contacts helps in further segmentation, which amplifies the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Nurture contacts. Insights tell us who has noticed us. Nurturing allows us to tell them our story through content and messaging strategy. People who exhibit continued interest during and after the nurturing phase are showing strong intent to purchase.
Generate Leads. By leveraging insights to predict buying intent, then nurturing to further develop demand, your inevitable result will be pinpointing incredibly low-hanging fruit, some of which will be ready for the hard sell.
Report ROI. Using advanced technology-enabled marketing has it’s advantages, and one of which is showing your value. If you’re tracking your contacts, their lead sources, and their behaviors, it is relatively simple with proper tools to continue that track through the buying cycle. Ultra marketers could pull ROI reports displaying what sales or percentages of sales could be attributed to marketing efforts, and how many dollars each marketing channel leading to.
As the ground continues to shift for marketers — from highly inbound-driven to data-driven to intelligence-driven — the ultramodern marketers will ultimately prevail!
