When my grandfather died a month shy of his 99th birthday, The Washington Post ran advertising in his obituary. That’s because some of the ads he created for the family retail store were bold and controversial, and they memorialized him with a few of them. He had blazed a path forward based on his convictions.
Years later I found myself coaching my parents who were then running the store. My father was spending six figures a year advertising every week in the newspaper, and that’s how customers came in.
Instead, I suggested that he start an email newsletter, and he did. Nearly every customer who came in the store wrote down an email address and it wasn’t long before his list topped 10,000 people. Eventually he stopped advertising, and that email list was pretty much the only external marketing the store did.
The Internet Has Come a Long Way
I was thirteen years old and flush with the Bar Mitzvah gift money my relatives had stuffed into my jacket pocket when I bought an Apple ][+. I remember being on BBS’s (bulletin board systems) where you would dial in with your 300 baud modem, read messages, leave a message yourself, then hang up so the next person could call in and respond.
300 baud, by the way, means that the connection rate was such that each letter would appear on the screen o-n-e-b-y-o-n-e, kinda like a teletype. It was such a relief to go to 1200 baud. Good to remember next time your browser takes 5 seconds to buffer some HD video.
[Whippersnappers. Where was I? Anyway…]
I still hear the term “internet marketing” thrown around. I’m thinking it’s time we stopped, for a few reasons.
Oh yes, I know there have been some unethical, if not illegal, marketing strategies put out through the internet. However, unethical marketing is nothing new. I seem to remember a certain army leaving a big wooden horse as a gift to another army. The horse, alas, was not what it seemed, and during the night soldiers hidden within it unlocked the gates of the citadel. The Greek army poured into Troy, ending a ten year siege.
I heard someone even named a bit of malicious software after this 3000 year-old tactic.
Don’t Get Stuck on the Technology
Whether it’s a wooden horse or software, the principle is the same: beware of Greeks bearing gifts. Similarly, there are principles to marketing that have worked throughout the ages. If you know the principles, you’ll see them clearly replicated again and again, despite changes in technology.
People like to proclaim things like “the new economy,” or “the new age” or what have you, because it creates some nice buzz, but the truth is that very little changes.
For instance, there is a lot of talk about how powerful it is to be able to track how people move through your website, and know what your customers were doing. Very useful information. My grandfather was great at this. He would stand at the cash register, watch people enter the store, and watch what they did. If someone picked up a bottle, put it the shopping cart, but then walked out leaving it there (aka, “abandoned the shopping cart”) he knew it.
I tell you this not to decry the advances in technology, but to simply to bring some sanity and perspective. All these technology wizards have been working hard to replicate what my grandfather did, and I’m grateful for both them and my good ol’ grandpa.
The Three Journeys of Marketing
Marketing has three different phases, or journeys. Learn them, and marketing will suddenly make sense to you.
The First Journey: Someone is out in the world, struggling with a problem you can solve, but doesn’t know you or your business. Then, this person learns about you. Maybe you’ve given a talk at a conference she went to, maybe someone told her about you at a party or other event. Maybe she saw a tweet or Facebook update that mentioned you. Maybe she did an internet search and you showed up in the results.
If you do your job well, when she is made aware of you and what you do, she gets that you are talking to someone like her, that you can be trusted, and that you can solve the problem she needs solved.
Chances are she’s not ready to buy, although occasionally someone who comes across you this quickly is ready to go. Ideally, she’ll enter the Second Journey with you.
The Second Journey: Interested enough in what she sees, your now-potential-client opts to find out more, often through ongoing contact with your business. This could look like:
- Walking in and out of your retail store numerous times, looking for what she wants, and thinking about it.
- Subscribing to an email or postal mail list and receiving ongoing notice of what you do.
- Following you on a social media platform.
Over time, through repeated contacts, trust builds. And, as importantly, your potential client gets closer and closer to the moment when they are ready to buy.
The Third Journey: You’ve wowed your client. They’ve been delighted. You then educate them on how to send referrals so they end up in your Second Journey, on your email list or whatnot.
That’s marketing. If you find yourself overwhelmed by technology, confused by tactics or strategy, just ask yourself: Is it intended to help you (1) meet new people (2) create deeper and more trusting relationships with people you already know or (3) help people who love you send you more people.
Stop doing “internet marketing.” Instead, show up were you need to, online and offline, and make sure you have all three Journeys of Marketing in place in your business.
Does it help you to stop thinking about “internet marketing” as something different?
17 Responses
Wow. You just took all the messy, panicky, stressful ickiness out of marketing for me. I just wish I’d had your simple, loving way of putting it 40 years ago. I’m certainly grateful to have it now! Thanks (moving from 1st Journey to 2nd Journey, looking forward to 3rd Journey)
Claudia! So glad to be on the journeys with you! And so glad it landed. 🙂
This is a very helpful way to look at it. But there’s another aspect. When we spend our marketing dollars, we may want to look at what we are supporting. I think newspapers and the postal service are important, so I might choose to support them by not doing all of my marketing online.
Hi Jennifer- I think there’s a lot of ways our businesses can support worthwhile organizations and individuals, and I heartily advocate it. However, I would urge you not to mix intentions without a lot of clarity. By and large print advertising is amazingly ineffective. I wouldn’t want anyone spending money on advertising unless they really knew what they were doing, and even then it’s questionable. And, supporting an organization without giving clear signals that something isn’t working I don’t think serves any of us. Thoughts?
I so agree Mark. We must have an open heart AND our CEO hat firmly in place if we want to “make a difference” in and through our businesses.
That’s an interesting point Jennifer…. And, at the same time, it’s possible to do both. Getting yourself out there on the internet can be totally free!
Mark – what do you think of print marketing these days? Does it still ‘work’?
Rebecca- Print marketing can work, but I don’t necessarily believe in advertising. There are other ways to use print effectively.
Hi Mark,
Enjoyed hearing about this again. I had purchased your Sacred Journey workbook, where I first read it.
The problem for folks is when they call “it” marketing – on or off-line. It pushes folks into this weird psychological place where they start acting like someone else. I don’t market in my head, I spread my enthusiasm. I don’t feel icky that way and I stay true to myself.
Jennifer, I’m with you. I write folks REAL letters! We need the post office for that. It’s all a pendulum. Like albums and turntables. You can buy turntables that cost $10,000! Who’d have thunk that?
Letter writing will come back, too. What’s old becomes new. All recycling of ideas in different ways.
Rebecca, Print will experience the same thing. It has been lessening, but is making a comeback We have five senses – touch is an important one.
And before the Internet, information still got around quickly. The Civil Rights Movement is a classic example.
Thanks! G.
Giulietta- it’s so true, language affects our perspective. 🙂
In my business plan (2 pages) I don’t have a section for “marketing.” I DO have a section for “connecting.” And I’ve just added the lovely subtitle “spreading my enthusiasm.” Fun! Thanks, Giulietta.
Learning about the 3 journeys changed my life and my business. It’s all so much easier now. Mille fois merci, Mark.
Thanks to Sonia @ Copyblogger.com who posted the link to this article.
The Journey really is a personal event, an event that we involve each individual in. “Fully Vested” was a slogan found on a College Fan Wear and if you can get a client to be Fully Invested in you and your products, then you have a lifetime friend and a new member of the family.
Aloha – very very nice mark. mahalo
It’s interesting that I was just reading about marketing for acupuncturists on a group I belong to. When they start talking web marketing, I’ve had enough background in that aspect of marketing to know that they aren’t targeting the right people. They’re just throwing out things to try and bring someone in.
There’s also an argument going on about whether groups like BNI are worthwhile, with the people for whom it works saying they’re great and those for whom they don’t talking about it as a waste of money–it’s rather a your side or my side discussion rather than a discussion of, “I’m the type of person who likes…and this works for me,” which is really a better discussion!
I agree, Mark. The advantage of the Internet is that it offers another way to reach out and touch people, to interact them, and to serve them. And there are some skills involved in doing that online that are a little different from offline (Copywriting, for instance). But on or offline, it’s all about relationships and service. All the bells and whistles and tracking int he world won’t substitute for authentic connection.
Mark it was very useful to me as I refocus my practice to be reminded of the 3 journeys. A simple but powerful concept.
All the joy of the season to you and yours.
Lyle T. Lachmuth
Great Updated Info.Appreciate for this post 🙂
I will go ahead as an internet marketer, but I have to set the time so as not to harm me.