The Smartest Conversation

I'm preparing for a presentation at the OutSell Executive Leadership Council Meeting in Sarasota FL this weekend. My topic is The State of Web Marketing. Unfortunately, all the speachwriters who are really good at bluster and bullsh*t are already busy, so I'm having to prep myself. I've come across two quotes that are impacting my thinking as I pull this together:

"Marketing and innovation are the two chief functions of business. You get paid for creating a customer, which is marketing. And you get paid for creating a new dimension of performance, which is innovation. Everything else is a cost center." - Peter Drucker

"But what YOU DO have control over is whether or not you're holding the smartest conversation on the planet about the market you're in, bar none. And once you do, the need to market evaporates." - Hugh @ gapingvoid.com

Defining marketing as 'creating a customer' is brilliant and typical Drucker. How do you create a customer? It seems to me that there are three variables: * DEMAND - Do they want what you have or can you make them want it? * SUPPLY - Can you convey the attractive qualities of your offering, or is it so good you don't even have to? * ACTION - Is the process of doing business with you easy enough, and can you inspire the necessary confidence so that they pull the trigger? It's interesting that the driver can be push or pull. If people want it badly enough, the product and the purchase process can be horrible. They'll seek it out buy it anyway. (As with airline tickets) If they don't want it you can 'create demand' via the various tricks the industry has perfected over the last few decades. (Like that folding table sold on late night TV). If demand is tepid, great marketing communications can help customers decide to buy. If demand is strong, it can be impossible to get any details at all and yet things will fly off the shelves. All of these forces and options come into play in the 'online version' of marketing. The friction of the buying process is no longer the physical process of locating the product, now it's the tangle of 'registration screens' or complexity of adding multiple items to the shopping cart. The generation of confidence is no longer the physical address or look in the eye of the sales person, it's customer reviews and Truste logos. Most of online marketing is about 'finding the demand' with organic and paid search, email and affiliate marketing, banners and whatever else. The remainder (though discussed far less frequently) is the development of a site that communicates effectively (from the viewpoint of each individual visitor) and makes the transaction process easy. The right methods and tactics for these fills millions of web pages, and book shelf space, and will fill a good part of my upcoming talk. But the Cluetrain crosses both sides of these tracks :-) and Hugh's brilliant comment points that out. A smart conversation is a magnet. A smart conversation is complelling and convincing. People talk about a smart conversation, especially if it's not too late for the people they're telling to come and watch or join in. People don't leave a smart conversation to go to a lesser one. Smart conversations create customers. Smart conversations aren't the state of online marketing. But they should a big part of it's future. Thanks to Peter Drucker for clarifying what we're trying to do, and to Hugh MacLeod for suggesting a great way to do a larger part of it. Posted by Craig Danuloff at January 21, 2006 2:31 PM | TrackBack