Okay. So this is going to be controversial. I mentioned I was going to be writing this to a group of business people last week and I got a big 'ooooo' from them. So here we go.
To test this out, I'm going to focus on searching for an electrician in Brisbane. I do appreciate that certain trades are going to be more prone to be found this way - people don't look for advertising agencies via the Yellow Pages - but we'll use this one as an example.
Speed
Approximately three years ago I wrote a blog on Dominos after a bad pizza (can those two words ever be put together?) experience. I suggested that unlike other areas of the FMCG marketplace, both Dominos and Pizza Hut had failed to embrace the concept of 'premiumisation' and that if they continued to punt out sub-standard cheap fayre, that would inevitably be their undoing.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a fan of direct mail. I've received some great pieces in my time - only a few months ago I got a razor from Woolworths. Nice touch. The mail, not the razor. But if you're going to spruik direct mail like Australia Post's 'Open Up To Mail', and you're going to spruik it to marketing folk, then really, your data needs to be water-tight.
If you want to take a look at a pop act who is also an expert in marketing, then you don't need to look much further than Lady Gaga.
In the history of music, there have been some great self-marketing acts - Madonna, Michael Jackson, Sex Pistols, Beatles, Eminem - groups and artists that have their very marketing built into who they are, and their image and route to market is as important as their music.
This article was originally written by Dallas Lawrence, the Chair of the Social and Digital Media Practice at Levick Strategic Communications and appeared on Mashable. We have changed a few parts but most of Dallas's original text remains here, with our additional comments towards the end.
This could equally apply to Facebook as well as Twitter, and its actually from Facebook that I picked up this example.
I saw a status update from a friend of mine today asking ‘how good is cold rock?’ Now he’s a good friend of mine, but he’s from Yorkshire, and as far as I’m aware, the number of great ice cream makers that have come out of that northern county of England is fairly small, if not zero. So I can forgive him for his belief that the ice cream being served in Cold Rocks up and down Australia is of a high quality. I suspect he knows no different.
Sitting down writing a marketing plan for a current client, I devoted the
second section to identifying and communicating their USP - unique selling
point - or as another client/friend of mine talks about: competitive advantage. It was here that I realised that maybe the latter description is a better one to hold up to the light, than the former.
It might actually seem obvious once someone explains it to you, but cause-related marketing is one of the big growth areas for 2010. Maybe its the aftermath of the Obama-related helping your neighbour goodwill philosophy that swept across America last year, but using your marketing dollars to 'do good' in local communities is a big push next year.
I found these on a flyer sent through to me from McCrindle Research and being a slightly staty nerd boy that I was at Uni and school, I found them quite interesting. Whether you do or not is another matter entirely. I’ll also throw in a comment or two about them.
