Old school vs. new school marketing rules

This is no secret: marketing has changed with the “digital age.” Due to the fact that so much of a company’s presence is now dependent on multiple streams of media, the way that marketing activities are implemented has changed. You need to be familiar with the “new rules” of marketing, for example, if you are going to develop an effective marketing plan.

The Old Rules

The old paradigm of marketing was focused on delivering a one-way message from the organization to the potential customer. The idea was that the more creative the message and marketing campaign, the more likely the customer would be to respond by purchasing the product or service. Other characteristics of the old marketing rules may be:

• Advertising was key

• Advertisements were meant to appeal to the general public

• Advertising campaigns ran for a specific period of time

• Audience may have felt interrupted by advertising messages

• PR was a separate function from advertising

PR had its own set of rules that companies would follow. The main goal of the public relations department was to generate a press release that would grab the attention of members of the press and then use that attention to show that the audience was getting the message. Some other aspects of the old public relations format include, that all effort was focused on getting the message out to the public, that the press release was the most important tool, and that successful PR required creative ‘spin’.

The New Rules

Since the advent of the internet, information is everywhere and available to everyone. Instead of getting the attention of the press in order to be successful, marketing and public relations now require that a company get the attention of the individuals surfing the internet.

The most successful marketing and PR campaigns are the ones that get the organization ‘found’ on the internet. Some of the new rules include:

• People are well informed and expect the truth rather than ‘spin’

• Interruptions won’t be well tolerated in the age of DVRs and email filters for SPAM

• People demand value for their time and money and will use the internet to get it

• Marketing and PR are designed to appeal to niche audiences

• Marketing and PR employ multiple techniques to reach those audiences

Marketing and PR can now also take advantage of the new tools available. Media is no longer limited to just articles, direct mail, TV, radio, newspapers, telephone, and press releases – it is multifaceted and requires multiple methods of approaching the customer in order to be effective. The new marketing paradigm requires that the company deliver quality content via a number of the tools available today such as web sites, blogs, social media sites or podcasts.

With all of these tools available, companies have to be able to adapt their marketing and PR tactics in order to reach their customers in the ways that they are now available to be reached.

If you are further interested in marketing topics, read “Effective Marketing” by MTD Training is the right choice for you.

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