MadMen is a popular television program, now in its final season. It’s served to highlight one of our favorite professions—advertising. The program is instructive, both from a societal standpoint (the 50’s and 60’s are, thankfully, behind us…) and from a marketing standpoint. Despite the fact that we now have a wide range of new communication options to choose from as we attempt to connect with our audiences, the fact of the matter is that the basic principles still apply. Concepts and issues related to such things as how to create a sound marketing strategy, the psychology behind communicating with, and influencing people to think, do or believe something that will drive desired results, etc., have not changed. What has changed—and what continues to change—significantly, though, are the channels available to get messages out to audiences. The audiences, themselves, are also changing.
For us, that means that we not only need to stay up-to-date on new tools and new trends online—e.g. new social media channels, the impact of mobile, rules and regulations that impact online communications, etc. We also need to continually monitor the behaviors and preferences of the audiences we’re seeking to connect with.
Contrary to popular opinion everyone is not actively engaged online and, even those who may be on the Internet, may not be engaged in social channels. Pew has some good data on this that can be a good “reality check” for marketers.
The key for us—and I’m sure for many small business owners—is weeding through the masses of information that is now available about any particular topic and deciding what is relevant, reliable and credible, and what is not. We have some “go to” sources that we rely on and monitor regularly and we do the best we can to stay up-to-date by researching, writing and speaking about topics relevant to our business, and our clients.
One of my favorite (and I’ll admit I’m biased because I write regularly for this publication, is EContent. It’s a great source of timely information on trends, options and opportunities in content marketing.
What tools are you using to stay up to date in your field?
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