Marketing: All Smoke and Mirrors?
I saw my first magic show today. And not where you’d expect. I was at the American Marketing Association’s M.planet 2009 conference. They were gracious enough to invite me to come out to their Orlando conference (on their dime; thanks AMA). Not your typical conference.
As we were waiting for Dennis Dunlap, CEO of AMA, I noticed strange boxes and gadgets on stage. Turns out they intro’d Mr. Dunlap with a pretty good magic performance. Nice. There were your typical disappearing/reappearing tricks, and then Mr. Dunlap appeared out of a clear glass box. Great intro. I don’t even want to know how they did all the tricks. I’d rather be swayed by the romance of magic.
His point, a bit lost in the loud music and magic, was that marketing isn’t just smoke and mirrors. It takes a great strategy and the ability to adapt to the changes we’re currently seeing in what he calls the “marketsphere.” I couldn’t agree more. So for the next few posts, I’ll be sharing what I learned at this conference, and applying it to things you as a business owner can use in your business.
Key takeaways here: Marketers need to have a dual agenda:
1. Being able to market in the moment. Being flexible.
2. Having the discipline to handle whatever is coming, given the economy and ever-changing technology, et cetera.
I found it interesting that so few marketers were well-versed in social media. Some didn’t even know what a blog was.
I take it as my mission to help educate you, dear readers, in understanding the importance these tools play in your marketing mix. But if you’re reading this blog, maybe you’re further along than these guys were.
What do you think? Where is social media in your thinking about marketing in 2009? Is it on your roadmap, or somewhere off in the distance where you don’t want to think about it? Are there topics I can cover to make you more comfortable getting familiar with the Marketing 2.0 world?