Marketing 2.0 is about revolution, not evolution. Where marketing and public relations (PR) of the 1.0 world relied on distribution control, Marketing 2.0 relies on free distribution and the creative commons.
This is less evolution and more revolution.
The printing press was the key to unlock information. The printing press broke down the carefully regulated information gate.
With the printing press, information was produced and replicated faster than ever.
However, information remained unavailable to all and remained regulated by those who controlled distribution.
Information relied on distribution. Distribution relied on money.
So, those with the money could tell people what to buy, what to read, what to wear, what to eat, what was good, what was bad.
People found this information easing into more prominent places: leaflets, flyers, billboards, newspapers, magazines, books, radio, and television.
Prudent Countenance
The printing press gave birth to Marketing 1.0.
The constant shotgun blast of information made the public grow weary. The marketer had to find new distribution channels.
The business of distribution (marketing) found new vehicles to spread information, to assault, and to interrupt without permission:
- When we ignore the black & white advertisement, they try color;
- When we tire of color, they try the full-page add;
- When we tire of the full-page, they assault our mailbox;
- When we throw away their mail, they ring our telephone;
- When we stop answering our phone during dinner, they increase radio advertisements;
- When we tire of more commercials than songs, they increase TV commercials;
- When we tire of TV commercials, they SPAM our…on and on.
Constant assault is ever louder, obnoxious, efforts to overcome TiVo, the VCR and DVR, our iPod, satellite radio, and our Internet to gain our attention.
We are tired.
We cope, with filters.
We cope, by blocking their information.
We stop reading, we are tired of your marketing and public relations hype everywhere we turn throughout our day.
And since they hijacked our entertainment by thinking it is a new source for their distribution, we have are now permanently skeptical of all advertisement and public relations and the snake oil salesmen who write and speak this way.
The Internet was the key to unlock distribution. The Internet broke down the distribution gate. The Internet sped information distribution to the speed of thought. The Internet gave birth to Marketing 2.0.
We are now connected beyond wires and beyond borders. We now own distribution. We have taken Facebook and Twitter and foursquare, and blogs, and we now come to rely on each other to recommend what we could read, eat, listen to, buy, or try.
More than ever our connection allows us to recommend what and who to avoid.
Are You Being Served?
Two industries acutely effected from the loss of distribution control are the publishing industry and the music industry; there is a new business model for each, out there somewhere. Today distribution control is no longer in either the publishing or music industry’s containment business model.
We have the power to reach millions of people faster then a multi-billion dollar, corporate, press release. We have the power and our social network believes we are more important than your press release. This is no longer 1.0, we are firmly in 2.0 and I bring you the rules:
- Understand your audience has the same distribution as you do, they can blog and Tweet faster than you or your hierarchy can edit and control spin;
- Understand who your audience is, don’t try to own your audience provide value to your audience;
- Understand what your audience values, not the features or benefits you want to sell;
- Lose control (a); if you want us to sign up, we move on;
- Lose control (b), stop asking for a wall of information that you want to build your leads database; if you provide valued content and there is a link and contact information, people will find and recommend you [would you rather have 100 leads of dubious quality or 10,000 downloads and 50 responses? Know what Google search engines value];
- Think like a publisher and make all content valuable for every flavor of your customer;
- Make sure it is easy for us to forward your information, if we find it valuable, we will distribute it for you, when it is really valued we even recommend it;
- Make sure there are always links back to a source or call to action, always make it easy for us to dig deeper;
- Stop spamming press releases, journalists Google you, they don’t look at a stack of your jargon-filled press releases;
- Post all your news and press releases on your website, that’s where we go for your news and that is where Google goes to index your information;
- Go where your audience is or provide all the tools for your audience to build their own happening;
- Stop co-opting Twitter, You Tube, and Facebook, we are faster than you;
- When you provide content you build organically: become the source for information and problem solving and you and your company will become known;
- Ask permission;
- Forget about your viral campaign, provide value and we make your content viral;
- We don’t care about you or your product, we care about how you or your product makes our life better – so get to the point without jargon, better yet, if you come recommended, I will find you
Twitter is not your Marketing 2.0 weapon to retrofit marketing 1.0 theory. Those that try to retrofit Twitter and Facebook to 1.0 marketing are nearer to extinction than revenue.
Those that treat white papers and webinars like a virtual trade show booth to collect business leads are closest to extinction.
And if you smother us on Twitter, we’ll move on and it will take you months of market data and research to find us again.
Lose control, provide content, make it easy to share content, provide tools for people to congregate, and help them celebrate their passion.
Marketing 1.0: the distribution is the value; command and control.
Marketing 2.0: the content is the value; contribute and collaborate.
Marketing is dead, long live the creative commons marketing world.
*Marketing heretics I follow:
- Seth Godin
- Laura Fitton
- David Meerman Scott
- HubSpot and HubSpot’s Mike Volpe
- Chris Brogan
Communication in the Age of Saturation Series:
- Preamble: Marketing 2.0 – You better free your mind instead
- Communication in the age of saturation, part 1
- Communication in the age of saturation, part 2
- Communication in the age of saturation, part 3
- Epilogue: Marketing interruption still trumps engagement, really?
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