“Person like me*” still most trusted source for information about a company and, therefore, products.” – Edelman Trust Barometer
(*“Person like me” is your contemporary – basically similar age, social status, interests – people you relate to as being similar to you.)
Let’s face it. We’re living in a low trust society. Anything your marketing says is likely to be taken with a pinch of salt, if not ignored altogether.
The good news is that people are stilling buying services and products, they’ve just changed the way they go about shopping. The old adage “people like to shop, not be sold to” is now more true than ever.
Previously it was very difficult and time consuming to get multiple recommendations from our contemporaries – other people like us.
It was even difficult to track down articles written by influential journalists on the subject – but the internet, email and now social media have changed the way we communicate.
By giving us more ways to access the people we trust, technology has exponentially increased the power of word of mouth to the point that consumers and B2B clients no longer have to rely on advertising and product brochures for information – they can get a hundred opinions and ratings at the touch of a button (all of them third party and all of them independent and so much more credible).
Technology has also given us the power to choose the news we read (without having to go through the ads first) and to watch what we want, when we want (our family as a matter of course now forward-winds through the ads when watching television).
Traditional marketing is broken. The new stream is all about conversation (your networks), influencers, thought leadership and social networking.
Planning to do more of the same traditional marketing activities in 2010 will likely yield poorer results than in previous years – so before you put a foot in the water this year, think seriously about doing things differently.
The good news is that we’re still in January.
