A Marketing Revolution

There has never been a more exciting time to be involved in marketing than now. Winning sales is always a challenge, choosing from the range of promotional tools on offer, but the internet has turned traditional marketing on its head. "Offline" marketing such as advertising and direct marketing are clearly much less effective. People are no longer willing to have their lives interrupted by being "marketed at" - they will do their own research and make their decisions based on online and offline word of mouth.  This means that business products and services are under unprecedented scrutiny and brings home the first rule of marketing - to have a remarkable product or service.  If you have, with the advent of online reviews and blogs, and social networking, your customer can do your marketing for you.

So, no need for marketers then?

Well, in theory there shouldn't be!  If you provide a great service to your customers, word of mouth will do the rest.  But unfortunately you are not alone in your marketplace and there is a lot of competition; some of it will be as good as you, so you have to make sure your voice is heard.  But the channel of communications has changed and you have to make sure you are "shining online".  The basic "building blocks" of marketing are still essential - and more important than ever; inspiring text and images; a good website presence; a stunning brand.  But instead of pushing out marketing messages, your customers are finding you - and either accepting or rejecting what they find.

So what does this mean for a business's marketing strategy?

Reassuringly, some things stay the same.  At the heart of a successful business is providing a product or service that fulfils customer need and customer satisfaction and ensuring you get, and respond to, customer feedback.  But winning new business is changing fast.  People are resisting being marketed at and finding ways to cut this out of their lives.  Advertising, media reviews and direct marketing are all less effective than before.  People believe what they see on facebook, twitter, and online reviews, forums and blogs as well as youtube, LinkedIn and Flickr.  So if you are doing something remarkable, make sure it is being remarked upon online!