Tell the world your story - Directly!

The frustration of relying exclusively on the media to deliver your organization's messages is long gone. Yes, mainstream media is still important, but today smart marketers craft compelling messages and tell the world directly via the web. The tremendous expense of relying on advertising to convince buyers to pay attention to your product is yesterday’s headache. Now you can get your product seen directly online in many different ways.

Any person or organization--non-profits, rock bands, political advocacy groups, companies, independent consultants, anyone--possesses the power to elevate themselves via thought leadership on the web to a position of importance. In the new e-marketplace of ideas, organizations publish expertise in various forms such as great websites that focus on buyers needs, podcasts, blogs, e-books, online news releases, which allows companies, institutions, and non-profits to deliver the right information to buyers at the point that they are most receptive to the information. Organizations gain credibility and loyalty with buyers through content and smart marketers now think and act like publishers in order to create and deliver content targeted directly at their audience.

The tools at our disposal as marketers are web-based media to deliver our own thoughtful and informative content and delivered via web sites, blogs, e-books, white papers, images, photos, audio content, video, and even things like product placement, games, and virtual reality. We also have the ability to interact and participate in conversations that other people begin, in established blogs, chat rooms, and forums. What links all of these techniques together is that organizations of all types behave like publishers, creating content which people are eager to consume.

Comments

[Britton Manasco]

You are a true pioneer, David. You've articulated a tectonic shift in the worlds of marketing, communication and... art. Seems to me, our challenge now is to get a better handle on the "discipline" of story development and telling in business -- and encourage executive decision-makers to invest in it.

While individuals have been liberated by all the media you mentioned, the opportunity continues to fall through the cracks at most companies. Perhaps they have begun to think more seriously about the story vehicles (white papers, webinars, podcasts), but I think most continue to neglect the story itself. They will have to see the numbers -- and payoffs -- associated with investing in compelling story creation and leverage relative to all the other ways they might spend their marketing budgets (advertising, trade shows, telemarketing, sales incentives, etc.).

I guess this is the rest of the story that WE have to report on, craft and tell.

[David Koopmans]

Hi David, I'll jump on the bandwagon of the post above; companies have a very long way to go in realising the importance and potential of good communication with the market. Especially in B2B marketing the focus is squarely on personal selling with communications often restricted to proposals (written by sales people) , sales brochures and a static website (put up because you have to have one these days)

I would argue that we have a long way to go in educating companies on how to take advantage of the digital age.

The lower the average age of the employee, the greater the chance that they will see the opportunities.
It does raise one other issue; where are we getting the writing talent from to publish? I posted an article on my blog that asks this question. http://www.mokummarketing.com/blog/2006/07/new-war-for-talent-people-who-can.html

I believe that the majority of business people are still not aware of the fundamental shift in customer behaviour and expectation that is driven by the digital age. That must be the subject of my first e-book!