Great marketing doesn’t always start with marketers

December 4, 2005 · Comments

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I’m sure many folks out there read the headline and sighed a collective “no s**t”. Or looked at their screens quizzically and breathed “since when is any marketing ‘great’?”

Well, marketing is a fungible term and discipline. When I look at some of the best customer-facing activities to come out of Microsoft in the past few years, ones that positively impacted the image of this company (what marketing strives to do, in part), I see 1) the rise of bloggers, 2) the massive adoption of community efforts across the company (disclaimer - I’m in community marketing, but still), and 3) the risk-taking transparency of the guys over at Channel 9. (A second note - I’m thinking from a developer audience perspective here, ignoring the rest)

Yes, our overall blogging efforts as well as Channel 9 I consider marketing, of a sort. And I mean that in a very positive way (honestly, no “Scarlet ‘M’” for you all). They are efforts most marketers can learn from, because their effect - and intent, even if indirectly - was to open up the company, put a face on it, shake off the four-colored opaque wall and invite our customers, partners, and even competitors in. That’s damn good marketing, in my book. Their cumulative impact - to effect a positive shift in perception and satisfaction of the company - is not dissimilar to the goal of our ad campaigns like Realizing Potential.

All marketing isn’t about demand generation and lead prospecting. Good marketing is also about perception shifts (and yes, some heavy doses of demand gen too, of course).

Anyway, I bring this up because I am continually amazed at what comes out of the Channel 9 team. Now it’s “shows”, such as this one on Women at Microsoft (link via Alfred Thompson via Jeff Sandquist). From videos to wikis to playgrounds and coffee houses, Jeff, Scoble, and team dream up ideas that are good for our customers, and just make them happen. Fast, open, honest, and engaging.

It’s really a way of doing business that those of us who are in marketing career paths need to pay close attention to. True, a good chunk of what we do is about driving business and feeding sales (pesky lead gen again), which translates into email, DM, banner buys, and so on - more on this in a moment. But we’re also in the business of changing perceptions about our company, our products, for the better. The details of the Channel 9 model may not work perfectly for all kinds of marketing, but focus instead on the spirit and tone of it all. There is some good stuff to learn there.

A side note - I mentioned driving the business and feeding sales = email, DM, etc. JaffeJuice has a neat post with a simple mantra, don’t be obvious:

unexpected and surprising messaging (read: creative) gets your attention…don’t be obvious AKA boring AKA mediocre AKA expected AKA safe AKA you get the picture

Now read Seth Godin’s post “The needle, the vise…and the baby rattle“:

Most marketers, and just about all struggling marketers, are rattlers. They try some gimmick or technique or product, focus on it for a little while, then lose interest and move on. After a while, out of frustration, they come back to re-try, just to prove to themselves that they’re doing everything they can to get the word out.

Don’t be obvious, don’t back away from the challenge, and if it doesn’t seem to work, don’t fall back on the same-old-same-old just because it’s there and comforting. I contorted a bit of the meaning of Seth’s post, but the point is an important one.

It’s so easy to draft up a marketing plan that runs through the checkboxes - banner ads, check. Keyword buys, check. DM (if you have budget), check. List buy + email drop, check. Content kit call-to-action that collects PII for your me-too newsletter, check. These, for the most part, work in terms of generating leads and moving people through the pipeline. We have the stats to prove it, which is why marketers always fall back on tactics like these. Lord knows I have time and again.

The challenge is to think like the Channel 9 guys - they are doing marketing, and doing it well. They are changing perceptions in a big way, and doing it honestly and transparently. They dream up new ideas for what might make the experience even better, and they just do it. They get feedback, adapt, and keep moving forward.

Don’t be obvious by using the same tried-and-true tricks in the marketers bag. Don’t fall back to them just because they are safe, even if you get burned by being out on the edge. The challenge to all of us in the field is to look outside our profession to those who are doing great marketing, even if it’s not so easy to recognize it as such at first glance.

Viewing 4 Comments

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    Great piece. I would generally agree with all of your points. But, something worth adding is that good marketing is about reducing the barriers between product and consumer, delivering the "message" at a frequency or impedence level the audience can accept.



    Do technical folks look forward to that next glossy brochure or datasheet they get at a tradeshow or in a direct mail piece? I don't think so. Do they like unformatted, text-heavy technical details or videos they can play on their next iPod/PSP/etc.? Probably so.



    (note: I say this also knowing that other audiences require the the glossies as much or more...)



    With our F5 developer program and community, we've embraced this approach and the great things the Channel 9 team is doing. Transparent, engaging, conversational, and - most important - substance without bulls***.



    Keep up the great thoughts and perspectives on looking beyond the obvious when it comes to marketing.



    Cheers,

    - Jeff
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    Great post - Reminds me of an old saying:

    "Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department..."

    Big media techniques don't work in this world - the democratisation of content and the accesibility of personal conversation make it appear too cheesy - which I guess it is.
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    Great marketing happens when you drop the barriers, forget that marketing is your profession, and focus on connecting with people and letting them know what you or your company are all about. My favorite marketers are artists, the genuine kind, because they are totally into their craft and they just want to tell you about it. Ideally, that's what marketing should be like, even if you are selling insurance.
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    Some great points, and I LOVE seeing some discussion going on (the joys of being Scobleized). :-)



    My post really had two points:

    1) marketing as an activity does not always equaly marketing the function/career discipline, and some of the best examples of innovative marketing are happening where you least expect it;



    2) for those within marketing functions, keep learning from those examples wherever they are, experiment, and break out beyond the core mix, which is waaay too easy to fall back on come plan time.



    All that said, I don't mean to rip on marketers at all - being one myself and being deeply impressed by the majority of my peers. So in contrast to "Marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department…”, I think you CAN trust us with it, just the onus is on us to adapt, learn, and be a bit different from the norm.
 

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