Jessica L. Owens

When I was just a freshman in my first advertising class in college, I learned things about mass marketing and advertising and how my favorite thing since sliced bread – DVR – was going to take away our jobs forever. This hit something in me, and not because I thought we should take away DVRs or something ridiculous like that. I decided that I wanted to be a marketer that reached people how they wanted to be reached.
I started reading books about Google and their conscious effort to “not be evil” and understood that to the core. Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com and another hero of mine said,
“Before if you were making a product, the right business strategy was to put 70% of your attention, energy, and dollars into shouting about a product, and 30% into making a great product. So you could win with a mediocre product, if you were a good enough marketer. That is getting harder to do. The balance of power is shifting toward consumers and away from companies…the individual is empowered… The right way to respond to this if you are a company is to put the vast majority of your energy, attention and dollars into building a great product or service and put a smaller amount into shouting about it, marketing it. If I build a great product or service, my customers will tell each other.”

My calling was easily what we now call social media and what we could one day call inbound marketing or something depending on the next platform of where this will exist.
Since then, I’ve read books such as The Thank You Economy. Gary Vaynerchuk instills this concept of customer service and a great product. It wasn’t until today’s “aha” moment when I realized that people don’t actually think this way by default!

This is understandable, though, for some. You could come up with dozens of excuses, and that’s good, because at least you’ve just created a list of places to start! Mine?

Excuse: My company is too large and segmented, I’m public relations and have no clear communication paths to sales or customer service.
Solution: I will start with the personal connections I have in each area as well as reaching out to a digital manager in each business to see if there are other connections to bridge.

Excuse: My company makes tons of weird things and I don’t know what people will be looking for and talking about online aside from the exact business name.
Solution: I will start with the businesses with the most potential for growth by reaching out to digital marketers and sales departments to try to bridge online and offline departments and will focus on energy, sustainability and innovation topics

How will you address your excuses for not properly engaging?

I was reading Unleashing the Ideavirus by Seth Godin yesturday and I started to think about the future of marketing and how we interact in a time when there is more content available than ever before. Seth talks a lot about how there are more and more competitors and the need to infest the “hives” with “ideavirus” in order to be successful.
As the world comes together on the internet, content grows drastically. We’ve only been in this era for a short period of time but we are already bombarded with more information than any of our previous generations could fathom.
Many see a future where the internet connects the world and the people all become a unified “hive” as Seth would put it. But after reading about Seth’s “ideavirus” and the need to infect specific “hives,” I beg to differ. He clearly states that there is no way to infect everybody even if your product could impact everybody.
So as we enter an era with unlimited content, we have learned to aggregate content in a way that is focused to only our needs. As marketers, it is unbelievably essential to understand this. As our world starts to evolve electronically, everyone will be segmented into hives. Marketers will have more success by focusing on hives and understanding the targeted hive instead of the traditional mass media.

I’ve seriously applied to hundreds of jobs- maybe even pushing a thousand job applications within the past 6 months or so. I’ve uncovered what seems like every single stone I can to find new openings in my area of expertise. When I feel like I’m at a dead-end but need more to find, sometimes I just find myself Goggling “marketing jobs” or something similar. The results are always something like “MAKE MONEY ONLINE TODAY!” Even if I just search Monster.com the results are similar.

It’s a hard spot to be in because there are so many qualified people with experience that are applying for the same job as I am. It’s hard to even find a legit job to apply for let alone get hired by one.

But as I keep searching and applying, I set my standards low just for the chance of getting hired. I still only try to apply for a job at what seems like a legitimate  company, but when it comes down to it, I really only want to work for a “good” company.

I realized recently, that there are legitimate companies that aren’t “good.” Sometimes people create or run companies for their own benefit and don’t realize what the customer wants or needs. Some companies try to find ways to make their customer think that they need their product. Yes, that’s part of marketing, but the other half of running a sustainable business is after you get the consumer to buy the product, they should like it, and they should come back for more, because they know it’s a good product.

The founders of Google based their company on the customer versus the potential of making more revenue. They constantly sacrifice millions of dollars or more by doing things like no ads on the home page, etc. Their motto is “don’t be evil.” What they really mean is don’t fall into the typical business man’s mind by focusing more on how to make the income bigger and bigger. Google wants to be a company that is focused on what the consumer needs.

In my advertising class, my professor was talking about how TiVo and DVR is ruining the advertising business. I spoke up and explained that I’m going into advertising but I’d never give up my DVR. He thought there was something wrong with this picture and simply couldn’t believe it. TV ads are still relevant but there are obvious signs saying that TV ads could be nearing the end. But that’s not the end of advertising.

I want my job to be the one that finds what works for the company without interrupting what the customer wants. I want to compliment the needs of the customer by giving them what they need exactly when they need it. I want to be that company that consumers seek just as much as we seek them. I don’t want to find a way to push my product in the homes of people who don’t need them just to make a buck.

How many people can say they work for a good company? How many marketers find themselves pushing the product more than it’s getting received? I want to be more than a legit company. I want to be a “GOOD” company. I don’t want to reap benefits that I don’t deserve. I want the hard work to pay off for the consumer and my company.

I was just surfing through my email a few minutes ago and a came upon my favorite statistical reporting newsletter from emarketer. Today’s big headline… behavioral targeting. God’s gift to Earth. The shocker was that the survey that was taken by Annenberg School for Communication at Berkeley Law suggested that users don’t want to see ads targeted to their interests. Not even half of the people surveyed wanted to get targeted discounts or coupons!

My question is why the concern? Are internet users so worried that people are stalking them that they don’t want to save money on their day-to-day purchases? Are users embarrassed at what they’re searching for while they’re online? When working in cyberspace you are your own judge because nobody knows who Joe Schmoe is in real life. So in this case- are users searching for less appropriate things that they don’t want other users to know about (for instance on a home computer)?

Even the young adults who are usually apt to newer ideas were more likely to say no to behavioral targeting according to emarketer. What gives?

Later,

-Jessica Owens

I talk a lot about social media. I’m a big fan & a big supporter so I let it show.

As a marketer, though, it’s important- especially in tough times- to stick to what we know and do best. I was reading this great article by Bryan Eisenberg about the beautiful balance between all of our digital media strategies.

Sometimes it’s easy to see these “shiny new objects,” as Bryan refers to Social Media, and bail on all of our other marketing strategies and hop on the bandwagon with no plan in mind. ClickZ has been running a lot of articles this month focusing on having a social media plan and not bailing on what we know best and what works well.

Take some time and look at your original plan. Are you still sticking with email marketing? Are you balancing well with your traditional advertising?

At CareerEco, my plan was almost based on Social Media marketing. I’m not bailing on my original plan for this shiny new object because it happens to be my original plan. But we are still using traditional newspaper tecniques and we still send out regular announcements. These are all things that are proven to work. It’s just a good reminder- even though times are tough, take a look at what’s currently working for your plan and make it a priority.

I joined Twitter this winter a little reluctantly. There was a big hype on growth rates, marketing potential and knowledge for business people and other users.  Well the chia pet had a big hype back in the day and that was a useless ugly plant people put in their window sills. Twitter didn’t sound any more exciting to me.

But I figured there must be a reason behind the hype and if I don’t try it out I’ll be confused and ignorant. I spent some time doing webinars to find best  practices so I didn’t look as ignorant as I really was and jumped in with both feet! Growth rates for CareerEco nearly doubled and we met our goal for the first six months of site launch easily.

Thankfully I did spend time on best practices. I learned how to market useful information to people that cared about it which is more than I can say about most of the people on Twitter.

Twitter has been hyped up for business people, brands, and ecommerce. There is hardly anyone that I know that’s on Twitter that isn’t in at least 1 of those 3 categories. Yes, I’m sure there are people that are just regular Joes trying to post to their friends and neighbors, but it’s few and far between. Take a look for yourself and you’ll see. How are businesses and brands getting their word to the customer if  really Twitter just ends up being outbound marketing to other business people. Picture the stock market room back in the day where paper is flying people are shouting and everyone wants their message heard to make a dollar but nobody can hear over one another. I’m starting to wonder how Twitter is any different.

I see a few different outcomes from this issue. First and worst: Twitter is a failure. Twitter may just end up being a medium for people to shout sales, news, and promotions. People forget to communicate with one another and simply treat it like the Television– mass media. Consumers will refuse to participate because of the mass amounts of spam. Not just spam from weirdos selling porn, pills and prescriptions, but from people like you and me: selling products and ideas. Consumers will avoid the chaos and go to a place where they can participate comfortably and seek the news and items they desire.

Or, the desired outcome is that the bandwagon can grow and consumers, customers, and regular Joes will hop on and participate. This will create the effect in marketing potential that business people, brands and ecommerce folks are looking for. With a little help from sites like Mashable or from people like Guy Kawaskaki, there is hope that businesses that Tweet will pick up a best practice or two and stop shouting. This is the outcome we’re all hoping for!