Here are some changes that I’ve seen already happen and that I think will happen for the rest of 2018 and beyond.
1) Relevancy will win the game.
Marketing is no longer about collecting a bunch of email leads, or having a bunch of leads that you can blast messages to. It is now more about being relevant to your current audience, being intimate with them, and being ‘omnipresent’ with those leads you already have and are currently generating.
Maybe 5 or 10 years ago, you could have a pipeline of leads, send a message to them, and a small number of them would buy right then and there. Well now everybody else is doing the same thing. Your competition is trying to get those same leads. Potential customers are bombarded with messages from everywhere.
To stand out from the completion, your business and marketing content must be relevant. You must place that content in front of them – A LOT. A lot more than you think. It’s not about spamming them – I’ll explain below.
Relevancy is about being at the right time, and the right place, in front of the right people, WITH THE RIGHT CONTENT. If it’s not relevant to the right people, you will lose attention. Which brings us to the second change in this list you must be aware of;
2) Attention is the new currency.
Forget email lists right now. Forget radio/billboard advertising. Forget networking as you know it. If you’re not actively creating attention and directing it towards your business and making sure your business model is relevant to those whose attention you’re trying to get, you’re going to lose the ability to compete.
Attention is so expensive right now that the attention you do get, whether it’s through Public Relations, podcasts, social media, paid traffic using Facebook or Google or the like, must be nurtured with content that is optimized for that audience. Your message must be crafted as though you are speaking directly to their needs at that exact time.
You need to be optimizing the methods you are using to get people’s attention. Or else you’re spending marketing money that’s not doing anything for you, and then you get turned off to that marketing method even though it could be a game-changer if you use it the right way.
People have become to starved for presence. The ability to get someone to presently engage with you and read your content or watch your videos has become so difficult that when you do get someone’s brief attention, it is imperative to be optimized and readily available, and you must be ready to capitalize on that attention because those that get and KEEP the attention are the ones that will win in business moving forward.
3) Be the Tai Lopez, or Gary Vaynerchuk, of your business.
These people have been able to master a very specific skill – Outside of being incredibly polarizing, they are OMNIPRESENT – they’re everywhere! Both Tai Lopez and Gary Vaynerchuk have spent so much time and effort being everywhere all the time to a lot of people, that most people have heard of them, know who they are, or can identify them by seeing a picture. For those of you who live under a rock and don’t know who they are – they’re master Marketers! 😊 There was a poll that showed that 3 of 4 males in the US can tell who Tai Lopez is simply by looking at a photo of him.
You can be the Tai Lopez of your industry – the big fish in the pond by being omnipresent; by continually showing up to your leads and customers that are relevant to your business and that you are relevant to. By being omnipresent, you are consistently top of mind, and when you are top of mind to those potential customers, it creates massive trust, so that person will go directly to you.
Instead of having many leads of lower quality, advertising and marketing to the smaller group of people that are more relevant will create few, but much higher quality leads for your business – you are on top of their mind more.
4) The death of the single marketing platform.
It’s amazing how many people I talk to that refuse to expand their marketing efforts because their ‘marketing budget is maxed out’ or they’re ‘not sure if it’s going to work.’ They stick with one or two platforms (word of mouth, or networking, or billboards, etc.). Some people are so cheap that they will only stick with free marketing! I know that sounds harsh, but the reality in our modern times is that the vast majority of people I’ve talked to in business know that they must use paid marketing to grow, and they know that they must expand the number of platforms they are using to get their message across to more people.
You must be able to distribute your content and marketing on different platforms. You can’t succeed in the long run using a single marketing method and advertising on the same platform. It has become so easy to distribute content on different platforms, engaging different audiences because the people that are on YouTube may not be on Facebook; the people that are on your site blog may not be in your email list; the people on your email list may not be on Facebook or YouTube, but you still need to be able to reach out to those people. Your competition certainly is.
“You must be able to distribute your content and marketing on different platforms.”
We also live in a world where we can take our content and distribute it to different places and repurpose it for different audiences for a very small amount of money. If you want to be truly omnipresent and be everywhere all the time to your audience, it will take more than one platform. You can start with one platform and as it grows it’s very simple and effective to grow the platform where your customers are, you can then take your message and place it on a different platform. This is necessary for your long-term success and growth, no matter what business you’re in.
5) Your marketing funnel needs to evolve
If you have a marketing funnel and are getting leads through it, you’re only part of the way there. It’s no longer about getting those people to sign up for your newsletter or through your advertising sales funnel, then a few of those buy your product or service, and you let the rest go.
Or how many times have you been presented with an email offer that “you better act now because this offer is going to expire tonight at midnight.” Only for you to check the next day and it’s still there. That no longer flies. Customers are becoming immune to that and buyers are becoming more sophisticated.
Your customers are sophisticated. Do you want to have dumb customers that are going to push a button because there’s a countdown timer and they think your product is going to go away? Chances are you don’t.
What you need to do is create experiential marketing funnels. The ability of someone to come in at a tfime when they need what you’re offering, and then from there, they are continually fed your content based on different levels of where they are with their needs. The days of using a single digital marketing funnel to grow your business are over.
It’s about bringing someone in from the Internet and turn them into a lead then turning them into a follower then an audience member of yours, and then from there it’s about having an authentic trusting relationship with them. This allows you to be able to go past the level of lower end customers to more sophisticated, higher paying customers because they trust you more.
6) Invisible ROI
Those that are spending money on brand awareness and audience building instead of just lead generation and sales generation are the ones that are way ahead of the competition and will succeed in the long run. This goes along with relevancy and omnipresence – those that are spending money on sharing content, on sharing their value and being in front of their audience are going to win.
It’s no longer about spending marketing money on acquiring new leads that are ready to buy right now – it’s too expensive.
The number of competitors that are out there spending their money and bidding against you for that customer are so high that if you don’t get smarter and realize that it’s about being able to nurture the leads you have and being able to show up to them and continually be in front of them, then your ability to market online and do it profitably because you don’t have a quarter of a million dollar a month budget, is going to be really difficult. It’s about you being in front of them and being the most relevant choice for them.
***
These are the fundamental societal and business changes happening right now. Your customers are evolving and the market place is evolving. Take these and apply them to all your marketing strategies, and your ability to market online successfully and profitably while allowing you to grow a sustainable scalable business will be much easier.
