This week, as we welcome the new decade (the ‘teens’), I am spending some of my down time reflecting on the aughts. Yes, they were the aughts (00s), not the 2000s. What a poorly branded decade: no one knows what to call it!
Relative to the field of marketing, it is difficult to identify another decade in which there was more rapid and drastic change in the way companies go to market. In technology, innumerable advancements transformed the way people learn, communicate, and recreate – all of which affect how marketers reach potential buyers. Wireless Internet, commercially affordable VoIP telephony, 3G smart phones, DVRs, iPods, Sat Nav, Kindle, and many other communication tools were not within the realm of our awareness in 2000.
This decade brought marketers and consumers a proliferation of privacy and security concerns. Legislative actions such as DoNotCall, CAN-SPAM, and now the potential threat of DoNotMail are changing the way people can be reached with marketing messages. Caller ID and commercial building security restrictions have also limited the ability of sales representatives to connect with potential buyers. The environmental movement has helped contribute to the perceived image of the printed page as wasteful and socially irresponsible. This, along with the greater attractiveness of immediate and portable digital data, has contributed to declines in newspaper and magazine publishing.
And around the midpoint of the decade, we started to become increasingly aware of social media sites, blogs, online videos, and other emerging Web 2.0 technologies. For the first couple of years, my company’s marketing management team (like many) was largely on the sideline observing and wondering if and how we would get in this game. In 2007, we experimented with YouTube. Early in 2008, we started our blog and began creating accounts with Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Slideshare, Google Adwords, and a couple dozen other sites to slowly build our inbound marketing program.
Over time, my company has become progressively involved in these online communities and we have slowly enhanced the quality and size of our online network of friends, fans, and followers. Through these initiatives, we have increased the frequency of our personal interaction with current and future customers. We have been able to strengthen our brand with those who know us and to introduce it to many who had previously never heard of us. We have been able to conduct speedy, inexpensive, and fairly accurate market research. Viral videos, interactive presentations, and PURLs have generated new leads and conversions for us.
In 2010, my company is entering our fourth year of inbound marketing. It is difficult to know how marketing in general, and permission-based inbound marketing in particular, will be shaped at the end of this next decade. One might expect change to accelerate at a more rapid pace in the teens than it did in the aughts. If it does, we will all be marketing (and marketed to) very differently. Hold on to your hats. This is going to be fun.
Your recap of the decade does a great job of highlighting many of the key technological advances. New and innovative programs and marketing approaches will both leverage and be challenged by these going forward.
Authenticity is key. One thing that doesn’t change is the need to deliver value. In the end, marketing has to be (a whole lot) less hype and flash – and focus on genuine business issues that target markets face – and how the products and service we are selling will deliver real and tangible benefits.