Nothing like a marketing cartoon from the great Tom Fisburne to brighten up the day and make an incisive marketing point at the same time!
In this post…
“technology can’t save a boring marketing idea”
…Tom reports on his recent trip to SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. Increasingly, SXSW is attracting big brands as a marketing venue to influencers (this year, even McDonalds has a presence) and as part of the search of the next new thing.
This year everyone was talking about Meerkat, a live-streaming app. There was also the robot petting zoo, drones, virtual reality, and wearables of all types. All very exciting, but Tom cautions…
“It’s important for marketers to remember that it’s not the tech that’s cool; it’s what’s enabled by the tech. It’s tempting for marketers to get so excited about technology that they lose all sense of perspective.
In 2010, I had the opportunity to speak at SXSW and soak up all of the stimulus from the sessions, booths, and conversations. After four days in the SXSW echo chamber, I completely drank the Kool-Aid. I got so excited about tech for tech sake, I temporarily forget that the rest of the world isn’t like the conference. And that technology is only as cool as what it allows you to do.
Just as Twitter is not a “strategy”, Meerkat is not a strategy. It’s what brands do with those technologies that matters, not just blindly chasing the shiny new thing.
Technology can’t save a boring marketing idea. But it can amplify a remarkable one.”
Quite so. And yet, in the world of mainstream marketing (and, to be fair, even in some more direct response oriented quarters) there is a seeming obsession with finding the “Magic Bullet” that will instantly deliver amazing results and make all marketing problems go away. You might say, anything but fix the real marketing problem.
Sometimes this is seen as a belief that clever copy is the answer, as I discussed in this post…
“The Cleverest Ads Won’t Fix A Poor Marketing Strategy”
Now, while I would love to claim that I possess magical powers such that a few well-chosen words can solve any marketing problem, that’s just not the case. Yes, better copy can often result in a substantial improvement in results. But the copy needs to be part of a well-thought-out marketing strategy and system.
More about that from copywriter Roy Furr…
“More Important Than Copywriting Skills”
As an aside, here is some “inside info” for you. One of the reasons the legendary copywriter Gary Bencivenga achieved such incredible results throughout his career was that he carefully selected the assignments to work on! He had a very careful screening process that enabled him to predict quite accurately whether or not a project would be successful. So, if the elements for success were not present, he would usually decline the project. That’s because he knew that even with his incredible talent, there were cases where the copy could not save the project.
Back to Roy’s post…
“Here’s what the world’s best copywriters like to talk about when they talk shop…
What will really move an audience is not the SKILLS you have as a writer. In fact, in the best copywriting, the writing is almost invisible.
What moves an audience is the MESSAGE.
If you have an incredible knack for message, you don’t have to have the greatest copywriting skills.
In fact, there are many cases of incredibly persuasive pieces of copy written by folks who were NOT trained copywriters outselling and outperforming competing copy written by A-list copywriters. Why? Because they knew the message inside and out, and told it in an incredibly compelling way.”
Another way of putting this is…
…it all comes back to the classic marketing triangle of Market-Message-Media.
For success, assuming you have a good product, you need…
1. The right market;
2. The right message for that market;
3. The right media to get that right message to the right market.
All three parts of this marketing system are required, not forgetting that essential element…a good product!
So new technology may be useful in marketing…
…but only as part of a well-constructed strategy.