The Marketing Industry Has/ Is/ Will Change and Agencies Aren't Changing with It
My short catalyst for how marketing can be optimized for agencies and brands, by taking away less of an in-house human element, and moving towards technology and outsourcing. It's the most cost-effective and appealing way to market.
As a person who works in the tech industry, innovation strategy is just another everyday discussion my colleagues and I have. If it weren’t for having an open mind, and a press for further advancement in technology, my company wouldn’t exist, and wouldn’t have the goals that it has. Lucky for us, there has been a window within a muck of tech industry which we can pigeon ourselves into.
Since the grassroots of our company, and with the industry experience of several of our employees, we all could see that marketing and advertising are still some of the most fascinating industries to be involved in. The evolution of these industries has gone from paper trails of illustrations, to a psychological experiment between the Internet and its spectators.
This means that the human element of marketing still exists, and will exist for some time, but it has feasibly become less and less, and will continue in this pattern. On top of that, innovative marketing strategies are difficult to find within a small in-house Marketing team — leaving room for a change in dynamic.
For something so obvious to my team and I, it still doesn’t seem to have hit the realm of thought of many of the old-school Marketers who we have met. This article isn’t a rant about what could be, it’s an educational resource, so that agencies don’t fall behind in the rat race of the industry.
We Are Human, After All
At this stage, we can honestly say that only humans can truly understand the complexity of another human best (at least right now). But as I said, this is changing. It used to be that posters and taglines could sell a product. Even during my business studies, this was an unjustifiable element of what I was taught. And, although it does hold some truth, consumers now want to be a part of their products.
Influencers are much more than what a man on the tv tells you — it’s people’s friends, family, and culture. If a friend tells an 18-year-old that K-Swiss shoes are back in fashion, or she read it on a fashion blog, she believes it. If a 50-year-old Marketer tells her that, she would be like “Hey, man, who are you? You’re still wearing shoes from 2 seasons ago!” It’s another reason why it’s a shock to me that Marketing Agencies still haven’t utilized the power of Pinterest; it’s influencers galore!
So since we know that influencers/ tastemakers are the key to getting your message across, why is it that it’s Marketers and Advertisers still developing their very own content in-house for their audiences? Social Media is powerful, and yet you still see the same posters on Facebook that you could’ve easily seen from an airline’s Marketing department 40 years ago. Why aren’t things changing? Why are some agencies still keeping it the way it was, categorizing their audience as “” If you’re just going to categorize “” as your audience, you’re missing out on a lot of other elements. Is " on Snapchat? Who does he Snap? Does he have a blog? Is he on Twitter, and why? Does he have a Pinterest account? What types of boards does he follow? Has he traveled? Is he more of an Apple or a Samsung guy? Does he have an Apple Watch or a Fitbit? Our influencers are not just our immediate environment anymore, it’s now become the global environment of the Internet.
Technologic
People are always changing, and the only way to keep up does not necessarily mean to come up with a campaign, with an extensive amount of research. It means to appeal to who your audience is listening to. This is why we started our business, so that we could provide Marketers those influencers, but as a part of their team. We do this through outsourcing freelance visual creatives to agencies, where they can fill in the blanks on their strategies.
Need a graphic designer who knows a lot about the music industry? We have one. Need a photographer who has worked for a makeup line? We have one. Young or old, experienced or experimental, Japanese or German… we have artists who can deliver to any part of your target audience, because they are part of it. Since they are part of who you want to speak to, why not have them produce the content which can help you appeal to them the most?
Having your entire Content Marketing team in-house, should be a thing of the past. Yes, you need some to align your strategy, and create a plan on what you need produced, which should be a particular aspect done in-house by those who know the company best. But we can all take a page out of the book of those YouTube stars who are drawing views, because what they’re doing is relate-able. The best way to speak to your audience is to have those who are a part of it, a part of your team. And, we can take it that even further — you can hire them out for a specific campaign, so that they are even more valuable for each project you have.
It’s ideas like this that drive my business (Soply) ambitions. But, for many, it doesn’t feel so commonplace. That’s why I’m putting this post here, in order to wake up the industry a bit, and catalyze more efficient processes. The Advertising and Marketing industry is changing, are you changing with it?
Wanna have a chat? Email me at va@soply.com to talk about what Soply does, and how the industry is changing.