I've helped marketers and founders grow their business for 20 years. Get weekly tips and tactical ideas that will accelerate your growth.
Digital Has Come of Age: Are You Ready?
|
Marketing has been getting harder. Have you noticed?
I started seeing early signs of this shift about seven years ago. I watched it accelerate during the pandemic. And I see no signs it will improve in the future. In fact, I expect it to get harder. Why? It's a matter of economics. You're competing for your customers' attention — and the more content available to them, the harder it is for yours to stand out. AI and automation tools are making it easier than ever to create content, which means consumers are bombarded with as many as 10,000 messages a day. If they see your content, and that's a big if, they probably don't have time to consume it properly. You need to continually up your game to get your message across. They also have a lot of options when they're ready to buy — you could be competing with businesses anywhere on the globe. You've got to offer extraordinary value to compete. I don't see this trend slowing or reversing. In fact, I'm surprised we didn't see it coming, because it was inevitable. Since the 1990s, we've been making a slow transition from a brick-and-mortar, analog marketplace to a digital, highly technical marketplace. During the transition, competition was low. It was all but free to market online, and results were spectacular. But the moment the world became fully digital, the transition period would be over. Marketing would go back to normal. And we've hit that point. It means you've got to work twice as hard to gain a customer. And you've got to make them fall in love with you so they won't churn. It's time to reexamining everything we do. Most of the tactics we use today were developed when the internet was new. They weren't designed for the competitive, AI world we now live in. We need a new playbook. I'm working on ideas for winning in the current environment. But for now, I've put together a short guide called Gain & Retain that will explain a bit more about what I'm seeing. Click below to access it — my gift to you.
I'd love to hear your thoughts. We're in this together, you know. Stay awesome, Kathryn P.S. I've also written an article that delves into some of my thinking around this. You can read it here. |
Growth Marketing
I've helped marketers and founders grow their business for 20 years. Get weekly tips and tactical ideas that will accelerate your growth.
Many marketers treat tactics like a checklist. Social media? Check. SEO? Check. Lead funnel? Check. What they don’t realize is that by focusing on tactics, they’re leaving gaps in the customer journey where it’s too easy for people to exit or engage with your competitor. Every business that’s thriving today is laser focused on their customer: their experience and the path they travel from awareness, to engagement, to acquisition, and beyond. Even more importantly, these businesses are...
After the fourth stem cell treatment for my spinal cord injury, I thought I’d finally begin regaining my life. So of course, I got a job in Seattle and traveled there once a quarter. I even decided to attend Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, my first big event since before the injury. I obviously believed I was on the mend. And I did great… Until I didn’t. It was the last day of the event. I had walked the length of the San Diego convention center multiple times over the previous two...
In recent years, there’s been a move within companies to consolidate the teams that drive revenue. It makes sense on the surface — get them all on the same page, working together, and revenue should improve, right? But there’s a problem. The focus of this effort is usually on uniting Marketing and Sales. Marketing still has to perform their top-of-funnel activities, but their priority is to drive leads for Sales, making them an ipso facto sales development team. I could talk for an hour about...