"Cheap social media makes marketers lazy"
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A leading UK marketer has warned that the discipline of marketing is becoming “lazy” in the face of “cheap social media”.
Simon Carter, the marketing director of Fujitsu’s government arm, says that because social media and email marketing is perceived as being “free”, some junior marketers risk over-using it and ignoring the skills and disciplines traditionally learned by marketers.
The former Thomas Cook and Post Office marketer says: “Junior brand managers think social media is a great way of getting their message out to a wider audience at virtually no cost.
“The problem is that it’s cheap churn and too often, the stuff we as marketers are taught in the classroom about targeting; about the right message; about good creative and the proposition and so on, are forgotten.”
Carter believes social media and email marketing can play an important role but warned marketers against getting lazy. “I see campaigns where practitioners no longer worry about getting email addresses right. If something goes wrong it’s like ’so what, we’ll send another batch of 10,000’. I think that without the postage or printing costs that we used to have with direct mail, it seems to matter less if something goes wrong,” he says.
Carter adds that finance directors who care less about return on investment than they do about cost are guilty of encouraging greater use of social media. “The perception that it is free means that finance bosses are happy for their marketing directors to do lots of it. As far as they’re concerned it is modern and it enables the brand to touch lots of customers without costing a fortune.”
Readers' comments (7)
Caroline Broquere Lartigue | Wed, 13 Apr 2011 10:06 am
How right Simon is in his observations. Whilst there is a lot of mileage in using social media, it should alway be done as part of a carefully developed marketing strategy. In simple terms never mind how big social media has become, it should be seen as only one of the components that should be used effectively as part of the marketing communications mix!
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Richard Ireland | Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:42 pm
Completely agree with a lot of the sentiment. Treated as a marcomm channel only, and with cost the focus in place of ROI, there is only one answer. Do more of it!
Measured properly, with the right and appropriate objectives identified, it can be a very powerful tool - but it is not a Direct Marketing channel alone. C-level needs to understand the profound implications for their businesses of getting it right, and equally for getting it wrong. Those 10,000 mistyped email addresses will turn into negative sentiment a lot more quickly these days if any of them happen on a genuine user.
Social media is a huge opportunity, and the winning companies will be those that transform their businesses, from product research & design thru recruitment and customer service to aftersales. Outbound advertising is just a small part of that opportunity.
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Jan Jivmark | Wed, 13 Apr 2011 1:05 pm
This is one way to see it, and I respect your view. My view is pretty different though.
I believe that today, money is not enough to be successful in Marketing (unless you spend it on skillful agencies). Online Marketing, with Email, Web, Search, Social, Blog (no, I don't consider blog part of social), rich media has moved marketing from an art to a science. The foundation is the same and equally (or even more) important, eg target audience, pain points, message, but today, you also need to understand all the different routes to market that didn't exist ten years ago. Forget old fashioned marketing education, many of the tools we (should) use today are less than one year old and you need to stay on top of all the new technologies that are at hand today
Today, the consumer or our target audience is in the driving seat, and we need to make sure that we are available and present for them as they see fit. Today, you can't just buy media and enforce a mesaage in the face of your audience
//jj
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Anonymous | Wed, 13 Apr 2011 1:09 pm
Well there are lazy marketers in every discipline. How many brands just chuck out rehashed adverts, slap on a "Your [product here], your way" and consider that marketing? Or throw up a whitepaper, get an email address and expect that person to buy instantly?
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Jamie Gavin, inPress Online | Wed, 13 Apr 2011 3:31 pm
I agree with a lot of what this Carter chap has to say here. Some people know the price of everything, and the value of nothing -- and that is a very blinkered view that you just cannot take when trying to achieve marketing ROI.
However, to brand pro-active and conversational marketing channels as "lazy" is perhaps a little bit of a lazy generalisation in itself.
Spending millions of pounds on traditional TV advertisements in isolation, when you know everybody is fast-forwarding through them anyway these days, has GOT to be lazier than pro-actively engaging with consumers online, surely?
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Keith Trivitt | Wed, 13 Apr 2011 8:02 pm
While it may be a bit of an unfair generalization to claim that “cheap social media makes marketers lazy,” Simon Crater's overall sentiment is spot-on. Social media offers tremendous opportunities to marketers, but we must not allow ourselves to become complacent in how we reach and communicate with our customers when using social media. The basics of good marketing still apply, no matter the medium used.
In the PR business, the mass mailing, or “blasting” of pitches, done by some has sullied the good work of many professionals who take the time to fully understand who they are pitching and why something is relevant to their audience.
Ultimately, the value of marketing and PR professionals comes down to how well we help customers and stakeholders relate to our brand and feel compelled to make some type of brand affinity or purchasing decision. That requires a comprehensive MarComm strategy that utilizes social media as one of many digital and traditional components.
Keith Trivitt
Associate Director of Public Relations
Public Relations Society of America
http://www.prsa.org/
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Andrew J | Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:16 am
It is also lazy to make unthought through statements as "targeting; ...the right message; ....good creative and the proposition" are all very important in social media marketing.
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