It’s very easy to declare something ‘dead’. Especially when it’s never been alive in the first place…
This approach generates loads of blogs and opinion pieces that tend do pretty well traffic and comments-wise, for obvious reasons. Often, though, these pieces fail (understandably) to deliver on the punch promised in their headlines.
Direct mail was declared dead some time ago. Obituaries for SEO have been doing the rounds for a couple of years. Ditto, email. And I’ve just added social media to the list of marketing disciplines adjudged, incorrectly, to have bitten the bullet.
Of course, what people are really referring to is not death, but rather (over)saturation. And there is a definitely a valid point to be made here. There are so many messages flying at us every day that any one channel or technique, poorly utilised, is unlikely to deliver. We’re all too busy, immune and/or uninspired to acknowledge poor messaging nowadays.
I think there are two key messages by means of conclusion:
– The first is that the era of lazy marketing is well and truly over; untargeted emails, keyword-strewn lazy copy, unstrategic social activity, non-customer-centric content and overly expensive direct mail are all destined to fail.
– The second point, though, is that any of these techniques used effectively, and especially when integrated intelligently, still have a great deal to offer the vast majority of organisations with something to say.
The king is dead, long live the king…
