For reasons historical and accidental, I’ve ended up in charge of most of Valhalla’s marketing and public relations. For those who follow my posts, it’s not the most natural fit for a reformed geek. But I’m really enjoying learning about it.
Some of the big lessons so far (and probably obvious to anyone in the field):
- Marketing online is much more like a conversation than a lecture. The audience is stuck in the lecture. The online audience can click away in a beat. People linger online over what engages them, and the main thing still that engages people online is conversation.
- You have know what your audience is thinking. Putting yourself in the mind of the personae you are talking to online is the best way to come up with engaging content that will get and hold their interest. At each turn in a blog post or a tweet, I try to have in mind what my ideal reader is thinking at that moment and let that insight guide what I write.
- Measure, test, measure. Online you can measure almost everything. Even branding becomes measurable — or, our entrepreneurs assure us, will soon become measurable. And the medium is superb for perpetual testing and improvement. Doing A/B testing is just a best practice, it’s table stakes for anyone wanting to do online marketing.
Please let me know what I’m missing.
The more marketing goes on-line, the more it falls into our nerdy realm.
I’ve seen lots in this domain because of Oak’s involvement in digital media. Here are most of the relevant posts: http://www.blackliszt.com/digital-media/
The conversational approach is at the heart of fast-growing Federated Media:
http://www.blackliszt.com/2010/02/federated-medias-approach-to-new-media.html