It must be the winter doldrums. The headlines in BtoB magazine all seem versions of the same ones I’ve read before:
Yes, the Direct Marketing Association aims to be more responsive;
Yes, companies are saving money by cutting TV advertising;
Yes, B2B marketers are trying to grab market share during a recession.
But there’s one thing very different. And that is that new media is involved in most of the articles.
Now normally, I would be unphased by an additional medium. When the Internet first came on the scene, I urged integration with other media. And I counseled that it was just another venue for our messages, only this one was two-way. For a while that was true.
But now it’s really so much more. Now, I believe, it’s important to adjust our fundamental thinking on the subject. We need to think beyond integration—which is still critical—to inbound and outbound marketing.
When you think of the Internet, which is still just a part of your overall marketing efforts, you think of messages coming and going in all directions. You probably don’t even send one cohesive message outbound anymore. It’s becoming impossibly complex.
Luckily there is marketing software to track all these comings and goings. Luckily, there are ways to demonstrate ROI, something I have harped on forever. Luckily, we can all learn and change. It’s increasingly apparent that learning about new ways to send and receive messages via the Internet will be a permanent, ongoing process.
So anytime you are lulled into thinking there’s nothing new in this world of marketing, think again. The last time there was something this new, Gutenberg was setting hot type.
Tags: B2B branding, EMS, internet, marketing, social media