Marketing has become a buzz word with its unique prefix ‘Digital’ added to it. Most of the digital veterans in the domain of marketing, advise on the ‘How To Market’ more than the Purpose. Actions without purpose are seldom sustainable. In this article, I would like to share my perspective on some key paradigm shifts, marketers need to understand and adopt in this digital era.
Our environment is dramatically changing, within which we communicate as marketers, to our customers. The shift is more towards adopting the ‘Economics of Attention’. In the former broadcasting age, the content was a rare commodity. Two to three decades before, families/consumers had very few channels to watch on television. Families/Consumers used to plan their schedules to watch key programs. Unlike today, If they miss the program, there was no option to watch it again in another digital media. Because of this, consumer attention was in surplus. Businesses in the past used to pay advertisers, to get in front of these well planned and attentive audiences, who were captive in one place. This conventional model of advertising was more of a ‘Piggybacking Model’.
And now that whole sort of economics have reversed, were in an age of content abundance. Content is being created and available all the time for every micro topic available in the world. However, Converse to the past, it is the attention that is increasingly scarce today. While content is in surplus. The attention of the consumers is split among many different pieces of content in different media sources. This is making the purchase and access to the attention of large groups of people a difficult task.
In the digital era, it is the job of every marketer to grab the eyeballs of the consumers in innovative ways. A marketer has to think beyond the conventional model. Marketers need to learn to think about content in new ways. Every business today is in a compulsion to learn and think like a media company. Every marketer in the business should learn the art of producing content. Content can be produced by DIY, Content creation can be outsourced or Aggregation and curation of relevant content can be prepared by the new age marketer. It is very evident that, by doing this, every marketer is also taking the role of an editor, media creator, and curator. A marketer cant just create any content, but he/she has to create media content that will draw and hold the attention of the relevant/targeted audience. The content can be in reading, Listen, or Watch mode. The content has to be so engaging that there has to be enough digital trigger for the reader to revisit the content or all the more, share it with their network.
Businesses need to slowly change their marketing division to more of a content editorial focused division. Companies that find this change difficult should strategically partner with media companies and with publishers to co-create ‘Branded Content’. Marketers need to focus that the co-created content, its not just about something that serves your purpose but really will engage and hold relevance to the targeted audience. Thinking about the targeted audience, and their want or need is key before composing a content.
Digital marketing is not just about social media adoption FIRST. IT IS NOT ABOUT STARTING TO ADOPT FACEBOOK OR PINTEREST OR TWITTER FIRST. The fundamental purpose has to be instilled in the minds of the marketers first. It is to think and act like a media company first and use social media as a distribution channel for your targeted and relevant content.
I believe that Content and Not Cash is the king of the future! What’s your take on marketing like a media business? Share your thoughts below or connect with us on nicheBrains to explore more insights and opportunities! Contact us at (support@nichebrains.ai)
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