The Old Way of Marketing

Marketing used to be about shouting at people loud enough and often enough so they’ll be influenced by what you have to sell. (And there’s no shortage of this type of advertising nowadays).

Although the delivery of the “Big Brand” message became more subtle through the latter part of the 20th century, the concept of “frequency,” and hitting the public repetitively with the same message did not change.

For example, if you think of the large soft drink manufacturers, fast food chains or car companies, the message may be designed to position their product, in your mind, with the concepts of “youth,” or “happiness,” or “luxury,” or “wealth,” and/or “family.” However, the real power has simply been pushing that message out, over and over and over and over to imbue it within the public psyche.

HUGE amounts of money are invested every year to forward this model – because it works.

But if you don’t have multiple millions to invest in marketing the old way, we can not only gain a tremendous cost advantage by using 21st-century technologies and methods, we can also achieve a greater degree of effectiveness by engaging with, and interacting with the types of prospects that are interested in our products or services!

In fact, new media marketing (which is changing and evolving as you read this) is effective enough that even the big brand advertisers have been moving a larger percentage of their overall advertising budget to new media technologies for years.

New media marketing represents digital media native to computers and the internet for distribution. Some examples include social media, virtual worlds, website games, computer animation, interactive computer installations and video advertising in general.

New media are often contrasted to “old media”, such as television, radio, and print media, although the distinction may be moot, since for years, these, too, have been in the process of becoming digitized: when was the last time you read a physical newspaper?

The question is not whether 21st-century marketing technologies are effective, or whether your business should avail itself of the same; the question is how much are you taking advantage of new media and new technology marketing right now?