Traditional marketing is dying.

I was going through some old textbooks yesterday and came upon the 4p's of marketing. For those of you that need a refresher, the four P's are Product, Place, Promotion, and Price.  If you think you can market yourself using this out of date garbage - think again. 

The 4p's no longer applies in the new world order of the on-demand consumer.  Sorry folks, nobody cares about your Product anymore.  All they care about is how it is going to solve their pain and make their life better. 

Place.  Place really doesn't matter because you should be online with your product or service.  Over 90% of all goods and services are now being sourced with the click of a mouse.  The new consumer does not want to go anywhere to shop except in front of his or her screen.

Promotion.  Traditional promotion is dead.  The new consumer does not trust traditional media. They have long since tuned out.  They are seeking advice from their online community  from facebook, twitter and other chat areas. Quit wasting your money on broken down channels that have not been effective for the last decade.  Find out where the virtual conversation is going on for your industry.  Start contributing (not controling) to the online convesation.

Price. You can't hide anymore behind your price.  Anyone now can source the world in seconds and find a better price.  Last month I saved over $300  thanks to Ebay, on a purchase that would have cost me $500+ locally.  (and by the way, I got the shipping for free to).  You better be adding a lot of value to your product or your clients will quickly find a cheaper alternative.

Welcome to the new standard.  the 4p's are all washed up.

Hep

Did you know that by 2012, 65% of all customer service issues will be handled by the cloud know as the world wide web.   The world is now seeking out how to solve their problems by clicking first, rather than picking up a phone.   Organizations that are intuitive to being a customer service leader are experimenting with different online tactics to satisfy customers seeking knowledge.

The good news is that  the more effort you put into your online service centre, the less time you will need to man traditional channels like the phones.

It's all about leveraging the cloud and maximizing your resources.

Are you ready for service in the cloud?

The debate over the usefullness of Twitter is on.  Much discussion about how and if it should be used as a marketing channel.  Important piece to remember is that Twitter is not a channel for push marketing campaigns but is about creating conversation and listening.

Entertain and create a buzz -- MTV has created a telephone like game using Twitter.  They tweet a message once a week and recipients are to re-tweet the message making an alteration to one word.  Gradually the message will spread, morph and degrade to an entertaining message.

Create a conversation and provide value -- H&R block used Twitter during tax season to create a diaglogue with their potential/current clients.  Their general message was, "We are here if you have any tax questions".  One tweet can reach a large number of people quickly. 

Promote an event -- At President Obama's inauguration, micro-blogging platforms were used to give play by plays of event happenings. 

Want more?  Have a peak at the full article I pulled these examples from here.

Students were recorded rapping about the perks of going to college, videos were posted on the web, and votes were collected from anyone and everyone who wanted to vote. Campaign has been promoted primarily on Facebook as this is the common talk area for potential/current students.

I noticed that on their Facebook page they have been given a little flack from some of the students who cannot find their video posted on the site.  When launching an interactive campaign like this you have be ready for the two way conversation that comes with it.

Have a look at the videos here. You can't help but giggle at some of them.