"Now we know that marketing = storytelling and everything an
organization does supports the story. So everyone is in the
marketing department and a company either tells a story that
people care about, or their story disappears."
- from All Marketers Are Liars by Seth Godin
consulting firm called Pinnacle Solutions during the latter
half of 2005.
I developed the concept and much of the subsequent
content for the company's new blog, DataGister.com (I'm
not crazy about the look & feel of the site -- that wasn't my
call). I also created & continually revised Google AdWords
marketing campaigns for the company. Both efforts
eventually lifted the firm's presence on Google search
results, as evidenced by calls from new prospects (a rare
occurrence before those efforts). Within 3 months, one of
those calls led to a major new software development
project with an out-of-state, household name company.
What kind of credentials are those for a marketing VP, you
say? Where are the years of experience spent in the
trenches as a marketing analyst, an ad agency profession-
al, a graphic artist? I was asking myself the same thing
when I took on the role.
Let's start with the late W. Edwards Deming, the famous
statistician I mentioned here. He uttered the following:
- Does experience help? No! Not if we are doing the
wrong things.
He was obviously not a marketing guy, and his statement
was not likely uttered in the context of marketing, but I
believe his view applies to a whole bunch of people who
call themselves marketing professionals. Too many small
firms I've encountered seem to ignore marketing entirely,
and most firms of any size who do recognize marketing
use the old ways: glossy literature, sponsorships, media
advertising, public relations, etc.
For me, three keywords define the new landscape of
marketing: storytelling, blogs, and analytics. Seth
Godin covers storytelling masterfully in All Marketers Are
Liars, and Microsoft blogger Robert Scoble covers
blogging with co-author Shel Israel in Naked
Conversations. And I didn't add analytics just because of
my statistician background -- marketing headhunter Harry
Joiner -- yes, a headhunter-- frequently mentions in his blog
the growing importance of analytics to his clients in
marketing.
So...who's truly equipped to excel at marketing today?
Maybe an actor, or a poet with an AdWords account
paired up with a statistician :)
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