The Evolution of Marketing

Man times, people ask me to explain the difference between advertising, marketing and public relations? Here’s a description I came across that explains it nicely:

"If a young man tells his date she's intelligent, looks lovely, and is a great conversationalist, he's saying the right things to the right person and that's marketing.

If the young man tells his date how handsome, smart and successful he is -- that's advertising.

If someone else tells the young woman how handsome, smart and successful her date is -- that's public relations."

Marketing is a process: It is getting someone who has a need that you can satisfy to know, like, and trust you so that they try, buy, repeat and refer your product or service.

Seems like a pretty daunting task, huh?

Old-school marketing tactics include:

• Print Ads (newspapers and magazines)
• Electronic Ads (television and radio)
• Direct Mail
• Billboards
• Telemarketing

These old-school marketing tactics have come to be known as “Interruption Marketing.”

Here’s the problem with interruption marketing: you have to get people to stop what they are doing, notice what you are saying, decide whether they are interested, and then take action.

Unfortunately, consumers have gotten really good at shutting out those distractions.

Think about your own habits – sitting at home on the Barcalounger watching the Phillies, and a commercial comes on – if you’re like me, that clicker gets a workout. Telemarketing – the no-call list. Junk mail. You can even DVR shows and bypass the commercials. Internet radio that is commercial free.

Interruption marketing works to a certain extent, but it is both expensive and inefficient.

About a decade ago, this little thing called The Internet came along and changed everything. It leveled the playing field by giving small businesses the same opportunity to market to their customers and potential customers as the big corporations with their million-dollar budgets.

New-school tactics are called Inbound Marketing or Permission-Based Marketing. They include Email Marketing, Social Media, Blogging, Pay-Per-Click Advertising, and Search Engine Optimization.

The genius of Inbound Marketing is that you get people to give you permission to market to them by being found when they have a need for what you can provide. Studies show that an overwhelming number of consumers search the Internet before they make a decision to buy. You want to be the one they “find” when they are in that buying mode.

If you’re on Facebook, when someone “likes” your page or becomes a fan, they are giving you permission to market to them because somewhere along the way you have something relevant or useful to stay. Same thing when someone opts-in to your email list, or follows you on Twitter, or subscribes to your YouTube channel.

Ok, so how do you make that happen?

Stop by next week to find out.

(Joe Ferry is owner of Chroma Creative Group, a full-service agency that leverages the power of the web to help small businesses with marketing and public relations.