TiVO, spam filters, anti-billboard zoning ordinances, anti-marketing blogging blowback. Signs of ad avoidance are all around us, and more are certainly on their way (much like the Ad-Blocker specs described in Branding Strategy’s April Fool’s Day blog entry).
People aren’t just telling marketers to stop; they’re actually taking action to dispatch ads and marketing messages from their lives. Which tells us one thing that many of us aren’t willing to admit: there are new rules in marketing, and if you don’t play by them, you will cease to matter.
Even big brands are hurriedly throwing up social media campaigns and “viral” efforts to spread their message to their quickly atomizing audiences. The problem with these efforts is that they’re ass-backwards, because most of these people don’t want to be found by marketers, abhor to be preached to and are offended by unwelcome intrusions into their lives.
So what’s a small business or startup to do when trying to spread your message and grow your brand? Stop focusing all your marketing efforts on spreading a message and instead build something that creates an audience. I’m not saying you need to invent the next Facebook or Twitter (although that would certainly help). Instead, narrow your focus to your industry or a single demographic, and create something that people will gather around. It could be free online tools, an industry-insider newsletter, a topic-specific event/symposium or MeetUp group. Whatever, make it something that people can gather around, and make it something that communicates the value of your brand better than anything that would ever come from a bullhorn.
And if you succeed, you could create something that is even more valuable than the current products or services you sell.
