Marketers around the globe are still asking the big questions: What is next in the multicultural-advertising world? How do we connect better with African Americans, Hispanics or Asians? How do we get them to buy more? How do we get them to hear us?
Surely, some are still banking on the old-fashioned communication paradigm, where others are openly discussing the new. Jonathan Mendez, for example, discusses in one of his blogs that SEARCH will “explode unlike any media we have ever seen before. … Search made up about 15% of the total US advertising spend in the beginning of 2009, and while the advertising industry continues to shrink (another 15% YoY in H1 2009) the Internet has not been affected, making the claim that SEARCH will become the most important and valuable media channel in the world.”
Whereas in a study by Michael Stelzner, it is argued that social media might be THE premier marketing tool today and potentially tomorrow. In his research (conducted via e-mail, Facebook and blogs), 880 respondents — 88 percent — reported using social-media networking as a marketing tool.
Such vast claims assuredly suggest a strong trend within the marketing community. The research additionally points out that the top social-media network is Twitter, followed by LinkedIn and social-bookmarking sites that seem to gain more ground as the next potential outlet for advertisers.
Unquestionably, it seems that SEARCH or social-media networks are the way to go in 2010. Unfortunately, the elusive variable that determines whether any of these marketing tools turn profitable still exists — the consumer.
Over the past year, the average consumer has been bombarded with a clutter of information. Let’s call it “recession yelling.” Marketers — with no true pulse on the essence of what consumers need to hear or where they need to hear it — yelled. Loudly. And they yelled through any medium they could get their hands on.
Is it effective? For some, it might have been. For others, probably not.
Lesson learned? Maybe. That still leaves us wondering what the most effective multicultural-marketing tool is in 2010. Turns out, it doesn’t matter what the hot new tool in the advertising world is, or what new medium you should use to sell your stuff. I know … my boss was scratching her head, too.
Shift your focus to an old behavioral concept: you only have to convince one single person — my best friend. I know, I know, mind blowing. But people really do buy what their friends tell them they should buy. We can spend all that money on TV, radio, social-media ads and search tools. We could even, as Garvin McInnes said in an interview, “get editorials written about our product.” It wouldn’t matter. What matters is that we only trust one person and that is our friend.
So how do we reach our collective best friend? Think experience, trust and relationships. Don’t think of consumers as buyers, but rather as people. Second, come to terms that it is not the product that gives us that gut feeling; it is the experience. Products solely fulfill instant need, whereas an experience fulfills our deepest desires. Third, train yourself to shift your mind-set from honesty to trust. Every consumer out there is expecting honesty; I do, and you probably do, too. And though honesty is paramount, trust will give you that reciprocal relationship of engagement and intimacy. Lastly, think relationship, not service. Everybody knows (or at least, that’s what the kids around the blog tell me) that service is about selling, and relationships are about acceptance and recognition.
People want to buy, so let’s make their friends our friends and begin the next steps together in the journey of 2010.
