Mass is out; Niche is in
Lots of conversations surrounding web2.0 lately; lots of conference invitations for web2.0 marketing events (none of which I can or will attend - poo-poo). I read a comment recently that the greatest benefit of web2.0 is that the world is your oyster. Groan. Meaning? Dumb clich̩ aside Рthanks to web2.0 the world is the new audience. Eh? Wrong.
If you start targeting everyone, in reality you’re targeting no one. Web2.0 creates outreach (i.e., targeting] and engagement [i.e., the conversation] but understanding who your audience is crucial for defining your marketing message. Particularly for small businesses, marketers need to be cognizant about knowing who they want to reach but more importantly they need to be realistic about who they can reach. One downside of web2.0 for many is that it can create the perception of static “channels” be it social network sites, blogosphers what have you; but as many already know, these channels are constantly changing - new channels open up, some disappear, and the outreach environment for many in terms of advertising is becoming more and more stringent as web users gain more control. As marketer’s, our hollistic marketing strategy has to be based on audience - not on "channel.” That said,
Stop thinking “broad-base” and start thinking “niche.”
Think Blackberry: a niche product that garnered mass-market attention but it grew from the path of niche-mindedness. For many businesses, small and large - there are probably a hundred and one other seemingly similar products on the market that are either skimming the profit margin or blundering horribly. The unique proposition of a partciular product or service is how you get to niche. And within niche-mindedness lies a more compelling, relevant marketing message for your audience. With time and effort and the right people on your team - at the end of the day you will get better results and it will [should] cost you a lot less.
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Marketing
21 comments:
thanks to web2.0 the the world is your oyster...
wtf???
So a quick posting before running off to Comic-Con in San Diego? I guess you couldn't wait to wear your Wonder Woman costume!
Dan says--"so a quick posting before running off to Comic-con in San Diego?"
Um...heh??? I don't get it. Sarcastic wit gone awry? Or maybe since I've been sick the last few days I'm just s-l-o-w.
Awry? No, it's your [cough, cough] illness!
Comic Con is a convention for people into comics and graphic novels. It was featured in an episode of Entourage a couple of years ago, and Wired Magazine highlighted a few pictures from this year's show. Knowing how much you love your Wonder Woman costume, I was sure you would be there! :-)
But as for your post, I have three thoughts:
1) Leave it to Marketing drones to over-hype an evolutionary step as a revolutionary leap (Web 2.0)
2) There are some decent thoughts about both Web-Two and Crackberries, but I still don't see a connection between the two (no pun intended)
3) While you imply that the Web may be (but is not necessarily) less costly, a lot of people in the C-Suite will look at the evolving Web only as a way to market at lower costs. I think this entirely misses the importance of the Web. It is not that costs are lowered, but that the cost structure has changed. Compared to pre-Internet days, a marketing campaign now has lower fixed costs and higher marginal costs.
btw: Wonder Woman
Hmm...leave it to non-marketing drones to not understand the difference between marketers' over-hype of web2.0 as a revolutionary leap and web 2.0 as a significant leap - AS IT RELATES TO MARKETING and marketing outreach.
Programming drones....yeesh.
1) I don't know too many people who truly believe that the social media landscape of Web2.0 is a "revolutionary leap." In fact, I think many if not most marketers would agree the progresses are evolutionary; I certainly recognize this. But all of that’s irrelevant anyway because what we're really talking about is how these evolutionary changes impact the marketing landscape (i.e., our approach to marketing); and from that perspective those changes are very different from the traditional "1 to many"-type advertising campaigns that most marketers are used to. In essence, the impact (and predicted impact) that social media has had on marketing efforts, is….[I wouldn’t say revolutionary] but, big. It’s evolutionary still even from a marketing perspective but it’s a change that many didn’t really expect [in so far as how big it really became] and a change that many still don’t really understand.
To market in social media environments like MySpace, Facebook, blogospheres and so many others (and be successful) you have to really think outside the box and attack the strategy from a wholly different perspective. You can’t use 1-dimesional marketing in a 3-D world.
2) All I have to say is..."heh??"
3) This is why CEO's don’t run marketing campaigns - they have folks called marketing professionals like marketing managers, etc, to do that and those people understand how to leverage the internet for purposes other than cost management.
Bottom line: those companies employing marketing professionals who don't believe that social platforms have changed the marketing landscape - are likely bombing with their internet campaign efforts or are really losing out on available opportunity.
Those marketing professionals who acknowledge and attempt to truly understand how to leverage the social environment of web2.0 (or whatever you think it should be called) - have a far better chance of running successful campaigns and delivering relevant messages.
And going back to the post - delivering relevant messages starts with niche marketing, not mass marketing.
Matt, I had the same reaction-but with a few more exclaimation points than question marks... ;-)
I've been trying to find the link to the article I read; I wish I had bookmarked it.
2) what "huh?"?
What did Crackberries have to to do with Web 2.0? And they (Crackberries) hardly started as a niche product; they were hyped to users and developers alike way before any were sold (as I recall, they encouraged everyone to download the SDK), and heavily sold to corporations. Perhaps the roll-out could be considered viral, but that is different.
Are you anti-tech? A tree-hugger? A nature-only folk?
You got something against Blackberry's? RIM? Cool gadgetry in general?...Why do you keep calling them crackberries?
Luddite!
:-P
... so my iMac wants to know who put the bee in your bonnet lil' missy.
It also wants to know why no one is writing about cost implications; what are they teaching you in b-school?
if you google "thanks to web2.0 the world is your oyster" sadly more than a few people have used that phrase in one form or other.
again, wtf??? or, wtf!?!!!?
dan, your notion that internet marketing is thought to be cheaper is misguided. Maybe ten years ago. I work for an ad agency in LA and we have a clients very big and small but the bottom line is still the same - good internet marketing isn't cheap. Think Nike internet campaigns are a dime in the bucket? Hardly. Yes, Nike's a giant and can afford the pricetag but from a pure cost perspective - it's $$$$. You don't sound like a marketer and deanna's reference to programming might be a good indicator but if you're in the business you know the numbers. obviously, if you do the bare minimum, as with anything it will be cheaper. But a solid internet campaign isn't so. Digital photography and technology, paying for online banner ads through google each month for higher rank spot (definitely not cheap), CPC, CPD - all of these costs add-up, not to mention human capital to build websites, develop good digital imaging and ad concept, paying for bloggers (which many companies do outsource), PR on the internet...ok, that is cheap[er], developing technology apps to handle user-bandwith, all of these things cost money to do well and for the campaign to be effective. If you're not in the business, you don't know the business and might have a difficult time convincing people otherwise...
Actually Matt, I didn't claim internet marketing was less expensive. My point (which on re-reading is clear) was that many executives would mistakenly look to the Web as a way to reduce marketing costs.
As you point out with the Nike campaign, the internet (like most things in life) has no limits to the money you can spend. But the internet also allows small companies and one-person shops to effectively reach a market audience at a cost they can manage. The overall cost structure has changed. Regardless of the set-up costs, the marginal costs of reaching your market is a larger consideration than it use to be. The old models with high set-up costs favored national companies, and the large volume of people that could be reached at one time made it feasible to market inexpensive products like toothpaste. The internet model lets small players into the game. And the scattering of the market makes it unreasonable to launch a big advertising campaign to something inexpensive.
okay, I digressed from your total comment and zeroed-in on the lower fixed costs piece so I apologize. But following on that - what exactly do you qualify as the "fixed costs" of marketing (since most marketing p&l's do not include "fixed" costs). Also, what does this mean: And the scattering of the market makes it unreasonable to launch a big advertising campaign to something inexpensive. A mash of words intended to sound like you know what you're talking about but the whole basis of this comment is ribble-rabble! If you can show me the trend where inexpensive campaigns churned out the ROI that makes the investment of big advertising an unreasonable investment, I'd be very interested! This isn't to suggest that the more you spend the more you get but certainly spend opens-up channel, quality, and content.
D-, want to jump in on this convo or what??
Well, it's hard to argue something that says a lot without actually saying anything...
Dan says--"And the scattering of the market makes it unreasonable to launch a big advertising campaign to something inexpensive." I'm not sure what this means; Either the scattering of the market is referring to the diversity of the demographic/pshycographic makeup of the audience, spend and loyalty behaviors, or perhaps where the marketplace is headed from a product standpoint thanks to development, technology what have you.
I don't know.
In any case....Some products or ad messages are geared towards scattered markets (pick one) and therefore, going inexpensive (which often impacts channel distribution, quality and content, and/or size, placement and volume distribution), could be nonsensical from a business strategy perspective. But at the end of the day so long as your campaign maximizes reach and is effective, if you can do all that and go cheaply for serious cost savings then more power to you! That's just good marketing management. Going big isn't always necessary - and it's important to be cognizant of the current social and economic environment which can offer some direction on how much bang a campaign ought to shoot for(what's on the news, changes happening globally, in technology, with competitors, etc.).
Particularly for startups and small businesses, going "too" big can often be like shooting yourself in the foot before the race begins.
RE: fixed/marginal blah blah. So Dan is saying that the cost structure of the internet has changed. **serious insight here** Yes, when a majority of households became equipped with internet access and average internet activity per household increased to a point where the internet not only became relevant but was/is considered a competitor against other major media forms (tele, radio, newspapers, etc,...), certain fundamentals of the internet from a business perspective became mainstream (i.e., bandwith, access, hosting etc.). And so naturally the competitive price-offering went down. As new areas of the internet continue to evolve and offer even more relevant product offerings for businesses, those variable costs (banner ads, cost for human resources, cpc, cpd - and all the other components that matt already mentioned) naturally go up. This is not genius-level thinking....and even these are still broad generalizations.
Correction: "...to something inexpensive" should have been "...for something inexpensive" (and had I bothered to review and edit, I would have changed it to "...for inexpensive products"). I appologize for the confusion; it was late and admittedly not my best writing.
Matt - looking over your response I can see why you would think my comment nothing but ribble-rabble. In addition to some imprecision with words, there were things like this: your understooding me to state that "inexpensive campaigns" make "investment of big advertising an unreasonable investment." This is nonesense as you point out, unfortunately that was your assertion, not mine. I never made any such claim; not even close. Perhaps you were thinking of this statement of mine:
*"[the old structure] made it feasible to market inexpensive products like toothpaste"
or this one:
*"the market [structure] makes it unreasonable to launch a big advertising campaign [for] something inexpensive."
Similar words, Matt, but different meanings. I have a small request, Matt: please stop quoting me!
Scattering of the market - I'm sure you have some term of art to discribe this, but I was refefering to the way that people's attention has scattered. Forty years ago, not only was there no internet, more people were watching TV (and often the whole family together) and there were only 3 or 4 networks (3.5? how do you want to count PBS?). In the prrint world there were fewer options as well. This is antecdotal, but when I was a child the home of every friend and relative had a copy of either Time or Newsweek and either Life of Look (my friend Jim's Mom also had Cosmo, but that wasn't on the coffee table!).
Ummmm, ya'll just gave me a whopping headache. Thank you for that. :) Having spent 15 years in marketing, and now being a one-woman-show small business owner just learning to peddle my OWN products on the internet, I couldn't help but read all of the comments... Burried in all the hubbub were some very helpful/informative bits! I did pause and ask myself... what the hell is web2.0? PLEASE don't answer that (forgive me my ignorance), LOL! I'll find out on my own.
I'll tell you guys/gal one thing. I found it a fascinating account of human behavior to see how you all interacted. For "marketing" people, I was surprised at how pithy and snarky (some of) you sounded. Marketing experts, above all else, should know that beating your "idea" on someone's head is NOT the way you "sell" your "idea", let alone basic social etiquette. But then again, who am I... just the silly little blond ex marketing exec., LOL. Couldn't help but think, why are these people so angry? And sorry, the context of the discussion did not justify it, at least in my mind. But then, I'm a tree hugging peace lover...
Suggestion: better to work with a recipe of a common goal of enlightenment, a splash of respect and civility, and perhaps a hint of encouragement. Can't help it, I've an artist brain. Brow beating is so unproductive and unattractive, it is the #1 cause of, well, headaches! But then, I was the silly rabbit who kept reading, LOL.
P.S. D, your comment about niche marketing is, of course, right on.
Hey Miss Chrissy!
Surprise seeing you on here. No one's angry. Some of the people who post are people I know well and are close friends with. Yes, even Dan - the heathen. ha! Because we know each other so well and respect each other, there's room for fun mud-slinging.
Dan and Matt may not know each other but they're both frequent posters so while we take occasional pot-shots, it's temporary, and it's all in the name of blogger fun. My next post will likely be about the upcoming party conventions and they're both liberal schwoozies, so I'm sure I'll be running for cover from both of them while they side against me.
pfft!
Heya D~
I know you're right, it's just a blog and you guys were just having fun. I must be PMS-ing. Ah to be female...
Hopefully it (PMS) will have ended by the time you post your next topic, LOLOL. :))~. I'm still surprised when I find out that someone under 50 is a Republican (ooh look, there I go...better stop now, hehe). Anyhoo, hope you've had a fab summer my friend, and I'm bummed I didn't get to see you in July. Hope we can plan something in the not-too-distant future (AFTER Nov. 4 of course, LOL). I'll show you a great tree-hugging technique! And after all, alcohol and politics definitely do not mix. You and I will undoubtedly be hitting the sauce when we get together, and I'm betting there won't be a conversation in this country, come September, that doesn't touch on the subject of politics. Hell, it's almost to that point now.
Okay, time to go take some midol and go shopping! Love ya Sis~
Crissy
"My next post will likely be about the upcoming party conventions..."
Hmmm, would this be the long anticipated predictions? I'm expecting your accuracy to be at least 50 percent!! :-P
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