Oh dear oh dear oh dear... :001_smile: "Us marketing types"? :001_smile: Which particular type of marketing type would that be then Peter?
Puleeze don't make the mistake of assuming that I am either inexperienced or unqualified in, or unacquainted
with marketing theory...
Or that I
particularly struggle with the English language... I'm dyslexic; which means I struggle deciphering the words on a page or a screen, doesn't mean I'm stupid or uneducated or need help looking up the meaning of things... My grammar may not be what it ought to be, and somewhat ideosyncratic, but you will find I'm reasonably adept at constructing a cogent argument...
As I said; there was a bit of a balls up with the post; and I couldn't edit it to read correctly; and at nearly 1:30 in the morning...:crying:
YOU are the one who, in the first place, used the word "counterpoint" to suggest confusion and disharmony. I merely highlighted what the principal ACTUALLY meant. I suggest that if you are unable to engage with
the abstract of a concept that a) a dictionary definition is unlikely to help and b) perhaps it's best to refrain from drawing on such abstracts in the first place...
As you said, you
can't speak for Paul, but much as I suspect you're correct in your interpretation of what he wrote you evidently missed my point; I was being deliberately non-responsive to the rather glib use of a piece of (what I personally regard as near-Orwellian) 'marketingspeak' as a cant.
For the benefit of the audience....
Classically, as it's taught (by people like me as it happens) in colleges push marketing involves developing your own marketing message and quite literally pushing it on your customers. 'Build it and they will come' if you like... So instead of finding out exactly what your customers want, you decide on your message and do everything you can to convince people they will like it.
Pull marketing activities on the other hand encourage your prospect to seek you out and find out whether you have something of value to offer them.
Now; in discussion with students, music industry colleagues is Is becoming quite apparent that the nature of pull marketing is changing. Back in 1991 when I did my HN marketing course, we were given examples of things like 'BOGOF' offers and discount coupons as examples of 'pull' marketing; even Yellow Pages! Though I had an axe to grind against that one :001_smile
Today, that would be seen as an at-best-naive definition. And it's true to say that today it is very much more about giving potential clients reasons to pull us to them rather than them to us...
There's a certain irony in the fact that push marketing is being used to evangelise the myth of its own demise..... from:
Pull marketing strategies for small businesses. Repeat after me. No one cares about you. Start adding value for your customers and they will come. Lead with the clients goals, concerns and values. Pull marketing is all about building brand authority, influence and visibility to achieve business goals. This method gets people to seek you out, and find you simply because you have demonstrated experience in the field that you operate within and added additional value.
Ironically; as actual business values I'd agree with much of what he's written here; But
merely as a marketing pitch? Which
is where we seem to be going here... Glibilization at it's worst! But then that does seem to be the 'new' religion....
And ye verily, I say unto thee that thine 12-sheets shall turn to dust and though ye walk through the valley of the local shopping mall no backlit posters shall ye see, no vinyl wraps shall embrace thine taxi and on no mats shall thy beer drippteth. The lawdy Stone almightly himself shall smite ye should Twitter ye not. And dare ye sink to the depths of page four on Google, darkness shall forever be thine fate...
On the other hand you could just say "shove that for a gemme o' soldiers" and try knocking on doors and talking to folk... Maybe a bit of networking. All terribly old fashioned of course... But....:thumbup:
in the same way that someone who picks up the yellow pages to find a plumber probably needs plumbing services, anyone typing key words relevant to your business into a search engine probably need your corporate video services.
The last place to look for a decent Plumber (or anything else for that matter) is the Yellow Pages... Or, increasingly, a search engine...
We've often slated Yellow Pages and indeed their online presence as being largely ineffective. That they are in the sorry state they are today has much to do with the internet it's true. But as far back as 20 years ago I was dropping our display advertising from YP; and
not just because the
pushy sales techniques they used left me feeling 'violated'.
Fact is, at one point YP was saturated with display ads. To the point where the directory had degenerated into such a mess that it was hard work to glean exactly what features and benefits were on offer from any particular company. 'Marketing types' who evangelised the use of directories would typically advise ever-bigger or multiple display ads. That and/or the adoption of trading styles contrived to appear at the very top of listings....
These days, when the Yellow Pages is dropped off at our building, the stack of them remains mostly rooted to the spot it was dropped on. Unwanted and untouched it's only value is the amusement to be drawn by watching it morph into a papier mache model of 'Cousin Itt'.
A glance through the 08/09 Edinburgh directory still reveals such gems as 'AAAAAA City Tyres' and 'AAAAAA A8 24hr Gas and Plumbing Services'. But despite the garish display adverts you would STILL struggle to find a
local plumber to deal with a burst pipe. Which, if you can cast your mind back 20-something years, is the very issue that the once scrawny, now positively anorexic "Thomson Local" directories developed their USP from...
Paper (or for that matter online) directories don't really work because the people who PUSH them have done so heavily to the point where the actual function of the directory is compromised. Sound familiar?
Now it's actually
not the case that my website can "only be found by people who know my company name". People find their way
to me (which is the important bit) through various channels. The website merely being one of them. Fair enough; others may rely more heavily on their sites and may therefore seek this "heightened visibility and increased profitability" (surely a push statement if ever there was one?
hmy: ) Such was also the case 'back in the day' when people were reliant on their YP listings.... And could be 'sold on' ever bigger ever more extreme and increasingly less effective display campaigns...
your post was, for me anyway, a confusing mashup of disparate tactics.
:001_rolleyes: Yes; I see that now. Not that what I've written actually is the confusion mashup of disparate tactics you interpreted it as. But, like counterpoint harmony, some people will only ever be able to focus on part of the tune....
My Granny Hated Led Zep... :thumbup::thumbup:
