A lot of folks have read my post "The Future of Media is Marketing" which proposes that one way media can innovate is to re-claim the marketing role from distributors and build a relationship directly with consumers. By forming a relationship with consumers, media will profit from gaining more confidence in innovating content delivery on a social medium, what to charge, and how to sell it. This post points out that when media proves it can sell content to its consumers, marketers will value that expertise.
It may sound hopeless that marketers will value the hard work if you read the post from Seth Godin's today. He says, "On the web, there are countless marketers just standing around waiting for someone to hand them the magic beans. And that's the problem. Marketing online takes too much measurement, patience, creativity, technical knowledge, flexibility, speed and authenticity." He suggests that marketers expect magic beans because that's what TV delivered. Specifically, he says, "even a complete moron, could make a lot of money using TV ads."
In My Humble Opinion (IMHO), Seth, maybe the folks who threw BILLIONS into TV advertising to launch the many dotcoms in the 1990's that do not exist today could be called morons. But, I would not call them marketers.
And I do not think countless marketers are "standing around waiting for someone to hand them the magic beans." In fact there are marketers, aka "formerly known as advertisers," taking dollars they formerly spent on advertising to develop websites that look like independent social media properties, integrating content with community, for niches contextually relevant to their brands. They are, in fact, learning a lot about measurement, patience, creativity, etc. - as they go.
Friends in the Media, before reacting and running after those "Formerly Known as Advertisers" with lower CPMs, there is hope. If they can do it, you could do it better. In fact, as I tweeted, you could kick their A$$ based on the weak results Brandweek reports, which I suspect may be due to the inherent bias a brand just can't avoid when custom publishing.
Start by improving
upon "what is," tell people about it, and charge a fair price for it. Then learn and adapt.
Not as easy as Magic Beans. This will take a little COURAGE, CREATIVITY, and ONE MAJOR CHANGE.
It just takes a little COURAGE and CREATIVITY to improve upon "what is:" If we can walk on the moon, surely we can figure out how to improve upon social media. We are in the CB radio/telephone partyline phase of social media! And the hundreds of millions of consumers experimenting recognize the need for something better. The demand for improvement is growing every day. There are lots of technologies that work.
Theoretically, you should be a much better publisher than your "Formerly Known as Advertisers." How hard is it to believe you can deliver a better product by combining superior publishing/programming knowledge with social media?
Which leads me to the ONE MAJOR CHANGE. Despite being communication professionals,
Media haven't been in the practice of "telling people about
it:" Media has outsourced the marketing role to distributors for
decades. Re-claim the marketing role,
build a relationship with your consumer, and be social.
Once you have a relationship with your consumer, you'll have free insight into what to charge, how to sell at each stage of consumer receptivity, and what more you can do to charge more, and so on.
Once you have a mastered marketing a product consumers will pay for, the "formerly known as advertisers" will pay a premium for your expertise instead of wasting time, resources, and money on a non-core business.
