DMNews.com has an interesting article entitled Marketers Must Give Up Some Control (which I found via Alex).
What do blogs, RSS and search engines have in common?
… “They require marketers to give up a degree of control.”
This is a tough pill for many marketers to swallow. It seems like a classic disruptive technology. It’s unfortunate, but the past suggests that in most (but not all) cases, people would rather hang on to the old ways of doing things (and typically, the old profit margins associated with them) and eventually be made redundant rather than adapt.
However, I think a lot of people focus on what they lose, and ignore what they gain.
Blogs:
Lose full control over corporate tone and messaging.
Gain a believable, accessible human voice; direct customer feedback to where it counts; credibility in the market place (directly related to the human voice).
RSS:
Lose control over the medium, the ability to “push” at will.
Gain customers that truly want your messages - the ultimate opt-in medium.
transforming marketer controlled push (such as DM and email) into user controlled push. The user is in charge. Better make sure you are giving them something they want!
Search engines
Lose the ability to dominate the conversation. Search engines, to some extent, bring about the great frictionless economy where people can find what they want when they want. Search engines can still be gamed to some extent, so money can still speak. They are working hard to make this less and less true, but I doubt they’ll ever get rid of it.
Gain a more level playing field for smaller players. The ability for products customers like to be rewarded with good search placements.
Let me know your thoughts. Think I’ve missed something? Let me know.
Harald Taglinger responded on 06 Oct 2005 at 8:03 am #
2 sentences on this:
1. Control has always been a marketing illusion.
2. Momentum is still the only thing being important.
Peter Horsman responded on 06 Oct 2005 at 8:26 am #
Interesting blogging survey results relating to this by Edelman and Technorati: http://hmestrum.blogs.com/my_weblog/2005/10/i_participated_.html
Hans on Experience responded on 06 Oct 2005 at 11:36 am #
Marketers Must Give Up Some Control
Charlene Li (her blog)of Forrester Research raised a question at Forrester Research’s Consumer Forum 2005: What do blogs, RSS and search engines have in common? Her answer was that they require interactive marketeers to give up some control. She had f…
Mark responded on 06 Oct 2005 at 9:15 pm #
Harald,
“Control has always been a marketing illusion.”
They have historically controlled the company messaging, just believed they could control the publics perception via that. And historically, there was a degree of truth to that. Increasingly their messaging has less control, but the response is to just do more messaging, not change the messenger.
Richard Jonas responded on 19 Oct 2005 at 6:25 am #
Should the strategy you use depend on how good your product is?
If you have a product that is good, then you give up control and encourage people to write blogs and subscribe to RSS feeds about it. People will say positive things, and if these come from a source that is more believable all the better.
If your product is not as good as the competition, should you have more control over the message and use more traditional marketing channels?
Mark responded on 19 Oct 2005 at 7:11 am #
I see your point richard. Maybe if the product isn’t great, it’s all the more reason to open up and get good feedback. And if that doesn’t fix it, due to cultural issues or whatever else, then use traditional means, but don’t expect to be around in 10 years.