There’s always excitement (not to mention lots of blog links) whenever a new marketing communications tool starts to go mainstream. It seems we’re all looking for an edge and the latest trend or tactic just might be what jumpstarts the campaign, gets the attention of that elusive prospect or impresses the client, the bosses or the investors.
But as a profession, we sometimes have a tendency to chase the new at the expense of the proven. This is not to say that the ideas shouldn’t always be fresh, just that new ideas always should be presented in the way that’s most useful to the audience and the brand, not what the technologists want to try next. By layering on new techniques and new tactics we often find that tried-and-true don’t have to be abandoned. They can be improved and evolved.
For example, most of the readers of this space have viewed and probably created Webinar programs. To some, this vestige of Web 1.0 may seem like old hat. But new tactics and technologies don’t need to replace established marketing channels if they can enhance them. It’s amazing what a Webinar program can do to promote a brand’s thought leadership and generate qualified leads. But it’s even more amazing what marketing that Webinar program can do to build a proprietary database and even educate customers right up to the point of sale.
By layering on social and shareable techniques, for example, gyro client Makino developed what perhaps best can be described as Webinar 2.0. Their updated program includes promotion and interaction not just on the company website, but on public social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
A Webinar trailer even teases the event on Makino’s YouTube Channel and ties all the work into our SEO program.
Of course none of this means we’ve discarded traditional Webinar tactics like in-house and third-party email blasts, banner promotion, prominent home-page links and cross promotion within the family of Makino websites. New technologies don’t trump the strategy and they don’t trump the idea.
They make them better.
by John Dobbs
Senior VP – gyro Cincinnati
Cross posted at Ignite Something on the Forbes CMO Network