I’m in the process of pitching a potential client. From what I see, if this works out, it will be an excellent opportunity. They’re a marketing service provider that offers the traditional services to their client base. The methods they use are still very much needed, they aren’t out of date, and they won’t be out of date any time soon. But in this era of digital marketing, those methodologies clearly aren’t enough. Not when the users of their clients products are more likely to look online for those very products.
That being said, there were several aspects of conversations I’ve had with potential clients that have showed me why online marketing has yet to receive the respect that it deserves. Budget allotments, questions about handling things internally, executive level buy-in, a determined need to find specific, immediate ROI. While I realize that the whole concept of online is still emerging, I nevertheless find this somewhat amazing. Most people today have integrated the internet into their lives, and have done so for many years. In fact, most of us use it for communication, or entertainment for research. But, still, there’s that initial resistance in many people in business. It’s not only a reluctance to not only endeavor into this no longer new arena, but to also to take the very steps to learn about it.
So I’ve put together a few reasons why I think this is the case. Each may serve as an “objection” that will need to be overcome. Whether on a one-to-one level upon pitching a potential client. Or on an industry-wide basis.
Lack of Vision
When companies can’t see beyond their basic core services, when they don’t understand - or worse, when they don’t take the time to understand industry trends, they show an alarming lack of vision. And it’s a lack of vision that could kill their business. It goes back to that “where should we be in five years?” question. They don’t understand that they have to answer it constantly.
I’ve seen decision makers in some fields effectively make choices to not learn anything new. And it’s not just because they lack an understanding that they need to change, but they never display the curiosity to learn. The very curiosity that acts as the impetus in creating a vision that will create change.
I’ve noticed this in the political arena. In between elections, I’d be attending conferences that would discuss the use of the internet in political campaigns. They’d be attended by mostly relatively young people, all of whom were politically sharp and internet savvy. Come election time, they wouldn’t get a seat at the table. The more seasoned members would praise them as being “upcomers” and they’d describe themselves to being “out of the loop” when it comes to “all this technology stuff”, but they’d always make sure that these young people they’re supposedly impressed with be kept in the back room with a microscopic budget and no say in any formulation of strategy.
The Disconnect
The mentality seems to be, at best, that the upcoming changes (if they’re aware of them) don’t apply to them. Somehow they feel as if they’re separate from the rest of the business world.
The mentality is “Sure I do the majority of my business correspondence via email, and I just bought a book on Amazon for my brother-in-law, and my co-worker’s now engaged to a guy she met on Match.com, and I’m planning a vacation by looking at Hotels.com, and I have to check my bank account status today online, and I’m gonna read that story in the Post that my friend forwarded to me, and I should donate online today to Obama/McCain, and ooh, here’s an Evite to go to thank event by the river, and I’ve got to update and add some photos to my Facebook page, and I should read that restaurant review online, and I’ll just go to the client website to get information, and that was an inspirations quote I was emailed today, and then there was that hilarious video on YouTube, and here at work, I need to place an order through that online catalog, and I want to check out the site for that vet that I need to take Scruffy to, and I should order a film from Netflix.”
Then they think, “But I don’t see how the internet affects my business. It’s not tangible to what I do.”
Lack of Priority
If one thinks in terms of traditional methods, then one is going to make traditional decisions. If online is the constant afterthought, the add-on at the end, the low priority, then it’s never going to move up. Again, if decision makers don’t take a step back to learn and see the entire picture, then it will never happen. Or when it finally does happen, we get…
We Can Do It Ourselves
There’s a trend in business to day to bring in every aspect of markeing communications in house. That’s quite common here in the DC area with all of the associations and tech companies. Many of these organizations turn to the “folks in IT” to create the new site that to replace the old one sorely needs an update. This is the extension of the trend of having one’s nephew create something on his spare time and then put it up on the web. The result is often marginal improvements that add nothing to the brand or user experience. And by not examining beyond the confines of the offiice walls, they never see “what’s out there”.
An extra degree of separation
I don’t know if that’s the right term for all of what I’ll explain, but I see a lot of the traditional ad agencies and PR firms - the ones that are the first ones many potential clients go to - know so little about the fundamentals of online marketing - let alone the specialty of social media - that they muck up many marketing efforts. Flash on homepages of websites, making them slow to download and invisible to search engines. Things like that. Blogs that post puff pieces and reworked press releases.
The problem is that those ad agencies and PR firms have the ear of the client, first and foremost. The marketing company hasn’t taken the time to learn new strategies, technologies, and methodologie while the client doesn’t know enough about to tell the difference. The marketing company blocks new concepts from being brought up out of their own ignorance and territorialism. The client says, fine, you guys are the experts.
The online folks are often then one degree of separation beyond this. All too often the ear we have is that of the marketing company who may see us as a threat.
Soon, I’ll talk about what many in the online arena do wrong.
Guess, I’m just frustrated. In a bad mood.
No Comments » Posted on July 28th, 2008 by Jonathan Trenn
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