At HigherClick.com, we certainly don’t dress like the guys at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce…
Our office looks a lot different as well…
The award-winning television drama Mad Men has been one of my favorite shows for quite some time now. The show, set in the 1960s, gives us a glimpse into what life was like at a big time ad agency in New York. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to sip some bourbon at three in the afternoon in the office with the founding partners of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. One thing is for sure – advertising has certainly changed and, while it’s sad for me to say, one this is for certain: For better or for worse, the days of the Madison Avenue Ad Men are over and today, Don Draper would be out of a job!
“Old marketing” or traditional forms of advertising was the life blood of the early ad agencies. Communication to consumers was a one-way street, with companies in control of the message and information the consumers were to receive. Communication to consumers was broadcasted via print ads, radio, TV, banner advertising, and cold calls. The goal behind traditional marketing was to promote or push products and services on consumers but it did so in a way that forced companies to buy, beg, and bug their prospective customers. What’s more is that old marketing has been viewed by consumers as being increasingly intrusive or disruptive and has therefore become less effective at communicating the advertisers message.
So…What happened?
Well, the decline of old marketing is best explained by a fundamental shift in the behavior of consumers. Now, more than ever, people are in control of the type of information they receive and how they wish to receive it. Hundreds of millions of Americans have added their names and numbers to government sponsored “Do Not Call” lists to ward off unwanted telemarketing calls. The majority of email users have setup some type of spam filtering or have unsubscribed to unwanted emails. The vast majority of television viewers are now skipping TV ads. Young web users are more more likely than not to leave a website due to intrusive or irrelevant advertising. Like I said, the days of Don Draper are over…
What now?
As consumers continue to head to the internet, “new marketing” or inbound marketing continues to rise. New marketing is basically any type of marketing that involves earning peoples interest instead of buying it. The major difference between new marketing and old marketing is that, with new marketing, communication is an interactive two-way street between the consumer and the company. Consumers are already online searching and talking about brands. It’s now up to the companies to not only join the conversation but to influence what is being said about their brands. With new marketing, customers approach companies via search engines, social media, and referrals. Today, marketers are tasked with not only providing value to consumers before a sale but also educating and even entertaining them.
What does this all mean?
Basically search engine optimization experts, social media consultants, and internet marketers are the “new mad men!” They’re tasked with helping companies get found online and building up brands through interactive marketing. By far the most effective way this is done is through content marketing coupled with social participation.
Content marketing involves the creation of useful content that will then be promoted to consumers (most often for free). Great examples of content marketing include white papers, ebooks, ecourses, podcasts, infographics, pillar blog content, educational videos, webinars, newsletters and more. When interesting, useful, and educational content is combined with a strong content promotion strategy, (i.e. facebook, twitter, news aggregation sites, social bookmarking sites and others) the reach of the content can grow virally which leads to a substantial increase in visibility.
As content is picked up and makes its way around the internet, many back-links are picked up along the way, adding even more value to the content. These links will help improve a sites overall visibility in search engines. In addition to increased search rankings, content marketing can create buzz, consistent referral traffic as well as new sales and leads for a business.
Here is a great example of content marketing: It’s a blog post from OKCupid, a dating site that has rapidly grown in popularity thanks to their content marketing strategy. The post is titled “10 Charts About Sex.”
If you take a look at the social shares on the SEOmoz tool OpenSiteExplorer, you see the article received a ton of social shares and picked up a bunch of back links in the process.
More and more businesses have noticed the trend towards inbound marketing and have focused their attention accordingly. Smart businesses and marketers are starting to invest in their search and social strategies. Today, corporate spending on social media, search marketing, and blogging is larger than its ever before.
One of the major reasons for growth of inbound marketing is the ROI it provides. On average, inbound marketing costs less than half of what traditional marketing leads would cost. Leads from facebook, twitter, linkedin, and corporate blogs are known to convert better than outbound leads as well.
Blogs, SEO, PPC, and social media cost a lot less on average than attending trade shows, telemarketing, and direct mailers.
No one can deny that marketing has changed at the very core. The internet has revolutionized the way we find, buy, sell, and interact with brands and their products and services. Intrusive advertising and traditional marketing is a thing of the past. The days of new marketing are here and now the focus is on providing as much value as possible to consumers while doing everything possible to earn their trust and loyalty.
So while we may not dress as well as Don Draper, or hold our scotch whiskey as well, we’re pretty confident we can outperform him and deliver better results for our clients in the internet age! Game on Don!
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Pretty sure Don drinks Canadian Club, which is a rye whiskey.
I think you may be right
I enjoyed your blog, and I understand the point you are making, but I think you are generally wrong about your delivery.
In today’s age people fight for the first place on a Google search term, the first video on a Youtube search, or the brand/consumer relationship status to be shared to ones personal Facebook network.
In Don’s age, they fought for placement on the best show (same idea as a search term), the best billboard, getting the best celebrity endorsement… It was essentially the same. If you had enough money, you could get it, and today is no different.
The problem with your case is that people don’t buy because of the internet, or because of a TV show. They buy because your story is relevant to them (and sure, because you were able to tell it to them). Story telling connects with people’s senses because they can imagine the smell of the coffee brewing in the story, or the emotion they felt when their child had their first steps, or the anger they would feel if their inferior product failed. Stories are where it is at (and this is also why Nickleback is so successful too by the way).
To explain why nothing has really changed, let’s go back as far as Jesus’ time for example. He often told Parables to sell his message, that is, he told stories. He presented his ideas in a way that make sense to his listeners and allow them to mentally imagine being part of the story, or recall a similar experience you’ve had. When you hear a story, you start replacing the characters with people you know. You begin to put yourself in the story if it is something you can relate to. When you are in the story, you can really imagine what it would be like if you were there and why your life would be better if you had that product. If that story rings true with your experience, you will likely tell that story to others, and they will believe as well.
Good marketing comes in all shapes and sizes, and there are many technical ways to implement it (Search, Social, TV, Print, Other Stuff) but at the end of the day, people still love a good tag line and picture the plants that story in their mind. People buy because something makes them happy.
“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is OK. You are OK. “
Hi Daniel,
I loved your comment and I have to say it was very well thought out and written. I also tend to agree with a lot of what you wrote.
My main goal here was to point out how traditional marketing has lost its efficacy. The point here is that today, people are more in control of the type of information they receive and the type of advertising they expose themselves to. We can turn off tv ads by recording shows, we can discard direct-mail, and we can add our names to do not call lists.
In the past advertising was a well delivered monologue from a company to consumers whereas today its more of a conversation. And by the way, I think you are completely right that consumers buy because something makes them happy or because a storyline in a piece of advertising relates to them. With that said, the way in which a story is pitched to consumers or the way to relate to consumers today is by offering them something valuable/compelling but in an interactive way. This would explain the rise in QR codes in advertising which allows consumers to interact with advertisements.
While I must admit that my headline was meant to be more of an attention grabber than a statement, there is some truth to the fact that SEOs, social media strategist, and inbound marketing experts are the “new mad men.” Today, these are the people that are most readily equipped to market inspiring stories and messages of happiness to consumers. The only difference is that instead of pitching a company on a new billboard concept, I’d encourage a company to save money and invest in a feel-good infographic filled with facts that reassure consumers that whatever they’re doing is OK!
Thanks for reading and special thanks for commenting!
Cheers,
Jordan