Losing Control? Marketers Can Learn about Influencing from PR
If “the customer is king” and “the consumer is in control” marketers used to dictating the tone, scale and reach of a marketing campaign must change their way of thinking.
Number one on Association of National Advertisers CEO Bob Liodice’s list of 10 Ways Marketing Will Be Transformed in 2007 is Consumer in Control:
“Marketers will abandon their historic ‘command and control’ model of brand building in favor of a truly interactive dialogue with consumers.”
This is not the revolutionary step it may seem. Any organization that relies heavily on public relations to protect its reputation knows that there are plenty of proven steps you can take to burnish your brand that involve influencing rather than controlling your audience and the sources of information they trust.
The only difference here is that marketers are adjusting to the new role of influencer.
For many marketers, this raises the question: how the hell do you manage your marketing budget if you don’t have any control? Maybe they should talk to their PR colleagues, who create plans and budgets to influence the organization’s important publics all the time.
Max Kalehoff of Nielsen BuzzMetrics reassures marketers that word of mouth marketing doesn’t mean you throw out the rule book and pray your brand will survive. Instead, he suggests we build our brands on reputations built from good products and good service:
“The fundamentals – which you can control – include customer respect, your own innovation and product, your storefronts and your customer service among others. In a world increasingly driven by word of mouth–where reach, awareness trial and loyalty must be earned, not paid for–these factors become the building blocks of your message and your reputation. Your message and your reputation then become the true vehicle of your brand–much more so than any traditional notion of media.”
Geary Interactive’s Andreas Rolle doesn’t see a problem with letting a marketing budget be dictated by how your target audience behaves. In his view, we often impose preconceptions during the budget process, and try to force-fit those assumptions onto a marketing campaign. Basing budgets on how consumers think and behave isn’t a huge stretch.
Implications for PR: The more your organization explores word of mouth, the more your public relations efforts need to be aligned with marketing. There is room for shared ideas and experimentation in that marketing communications mix.
ANA link via Joseph Jaffe. Photo by Tup Wanders.
Tags: buzz, marketing, public relations, reputation, word of mouth, customer, consumers
Related Stories
POSTED IN: Communication Plans, Marketing, PR
0 opinions for Losing Control? Marketers Can Learn about Influencing from PR
No one has left a comment yet. You know what this means, right? You could be first!
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: