subject: Marketing With Meaning [print this page] I gotta admit itI gotta admit it. Sometimes the marketing from even large and well-respected enterprises has me wondering if I simply just missed something. Im not saying that I have all the answers, but there comes a point where if you cant think of anything good to say, you might be better off not saying anything. Its the meaningless messages that really get astound me. Theyre meaningless either because they confuse being clever with being relevant, or because they are completely at odds with the image that the company concerned has been building up for years.
The TiVo marketing from a few years back is a case in point. TiVo as you probably know is a brand of digital video recorder or DVR. The company announced that a new feature allowed advertisers to include a small clickable logo that viewers could click on to learn more about what was being advertised. It sounded impressive until you remembered that DVRs like those made by TiVo were mostly being sold to people who wanted to eliminate adverts from their TV viewing.
But hey, lets be positive. If meaningless is bad, then whats a good way to do marketing with meaning? To start with, meaning is something that gets communicated. If youve ever learnt a little about how we all communicate, you may have come across this concept from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming). Its one of my favorites. It says the meaning of your (marketing) communication is the result that you get. In other words, it doesnt matter if your marketing is loud, flashy, clever or otherwise impressive, youll know if you got the meaning right or not from the actions that your customers take as a result. And, borrowing from NLP again, if your customers dont take the actions you want, then consider this as valuable feedback to help you to change your marketing meaning until they do.
Do you know what this process does? It helps you to make real marketing connections with your customers, connections that mean something to them. Your marketing becomes tightly coupled with their actions of buying what you have to offer. Thats the real meaning that your marketing has to have. No matter what new marketing fad is around today, customer-driven marketing is still a sure bet. Ready-fire-aim methods are at best short-term solutions, and at worst wasteful of all sorts of resources. Staying close to your customers is what lets you do marketing with meaning, and make the connection that counts.
