Dear Reader,
Happy Post-Labor Day!
For marketers this means turning up the volume to generate sales.
Unlike past fall seasons, you now face “The New Normal.”
WHY?
Due to massive disruptions caused by COVID.
It’s caused massive economic, social and political changes. As a result 3 to 5 years of digital and AI driven technological change occurred in a matter of weeks and months. This happened due to business and consumer adoption based on COVID-caused necessities.
- Health concerns due to rapid and unmeasured COVID spread.
- Increased economic deterioration (although not reflected in the US stock market yet).
- Lack of political leadership in the US and UK. While charisma might get a politician elected, the demands of the times creates historic figures.
BTW: I saw the basis for this trifecta start to happen last year. I dubbed this change the Seismic Shift in Marketing. I based my forecast on 3 key factors.
- Global economic uncertainty. Require businesses to create higher return on existing resources.
- Traditional B2B and B2C purchase processes changed. (Note: This happened before the digital and AI technology transformation which may cause another change.)
- Oversaturation of content, information and data reduced share of audience attention (or SOAA).
RECOMMENDED READING:
What does this mean for marketers?
- Focus on protecting the health and wellbeing of your customers and employees.
- Help your local community and I don’t mean window-dressing. Rather your entire team must walk the talk.
- Assess population shifts from cities to suburbs and exurbia. Consider the impact on your business traffic, need for and cost of real estate, and operational reorganization.
As a result, focus on:
- Building trust to drive purchase. The good news is that it allows you to get premium prices.
- Serve a higher purpose for your broader community. This includes taking care of your community, being green, and having employee diversity across your organization.
- Defining your audience more broadly. Think beyond buyers and their influencers and endusers. This includes your employees and others. And create about 3 to 5 marketing personas for each. (BTW, here’s how to win employee appreciation!)
RECOMMENDED READING:
BTW: If you don’t believe customers vote on your performance across these 3 factors, then examine the speed and breadth of governmental and police reform in the US post-George Floyd’s death in June.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Read past issues of AMG Newsletter
So your pre-COVID holiday marketing plans are as useful as yesterday’s news.
Still need convincing?
Amazon didn’t hold it’s summer Prime Day this year. While nominally the anniversary of their founding, it was the ecommerce giant’s version of Christmas in July. It drove sales during traditionally low sales periods.
Actionable Marketing Tips:
- Use recessionary marketing tactics to maximize early holiday selling. It’s a marketing version of early voting. Translation: Start holiday selling early to capture sales before the money is gone.
- Assess whether you need to change how you promote and layout out your retail and digital offerings. Bear in mind that context matters.
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Unlike previous administrations, the current President has rapidly and continually fired his staff reality show style since entering the White House. As a result, there are lots of people available with juicy, publicity-worthy stories to tell.
Tell-all books about the current US President have been published on a regular basis since he took office in 2017. The authors include a combination of recently fired employees and rockstar journalists. It’s almost big enough to require a New York Times Bestseller category of their own.
While some of these books have garnered 6 and 7 figure advances, including John Bolton’s memoir, most have a short sell by date. Translation: No one buys them after the first weeks.
hearings.
Even better, as a lawyer, Cohen probably kept copies of these files elsewhere to protect them form seizure by the US government.
Cohen’s story reads like outtakes from The Godfather or Goodfellas. So expect this to yield a high-priced movie or premium television show created by top Hollywood talent.
While Democratic politicians may have preferred to delay its release to capture more votes, the publisher timed the book to maximize revenues over the longest possible period. They assumed the book’s sell by date would expire on Election Day.
Actionable Marketing Tips:
- Get maximum mileage from your pre-launch marketing. The forward was “leaked” to the media in August before the Presidential Conventions. It read like a thriller and capitalized on summer news attention. Even better, every media outlet used it to the maximum allowed during a period when news shows had high viewership.
PRO-TIP: Put the same effort into your pre-launch marketing to build your paid audience. For example, Content Marketing Institute founder Joe Pulizzi applied the lessons he learned from his best-selling content marketing books to his first fiction foray, The Will To Die. As a result, it hit
the best seller category. - Take advantage of timing to get maximum results. For Cohen’s book, the window of opportunity was Labor Day through US Election Day. Publish too early and you risk peaking too soon. Bear in mind: Your initial distribution drives your life time sales.
BTW: I’ve made this point before, most notably at my 2018 MPB2B talk as well as my Content Marketing World 2018 talk on Content Distribution where line went out the door. To get the inside scoop, read this article.
Here’s the key slide with the data: While this BuzzSumo article attracted 10+k shares and views, better timing would have increased that number significantly. Check the date-pre-July 4th weekend which hurt momentum.
RECOMMENDED READING:
Thank you to our new subscribers: Prakash, Mikail, Charles, Elina, Manoj, Julien, Hasani, Tanaha, Mud and Leslie.
And if you enjoy reading the AMG Newsletter, I would appreciate it if you forwarded to your friends and colleagues.
Happy Marketing,
Heidi
P.S.: Want Heidi Cohen to contribute a quote or other commentary to your next article, presentation, video, research and/or book?
Then hit reply to this email and ask.
FEATURED ARTICLE: How To Attract Attention And Hook Your Audience
Want the true gold of content marketing?
Of course you do!
Then build an audience that:
- Gives you permission to contact them (aka: their email address) since your email housefile is a measure of your business’s value.
- Develops a habit for reading your content. As a result they actively read your content and information.
- Proactively seeks your content and information across formats and devices. As a result you eliminate the need for search since they know your name!
RECOMMENDED READING:
FEATURED ARTICLE: Best Audio Content Guide: What You Need To Know
The increase in use of voice-first devices includes more than just voice assistants. It includes smartphones, computers and more.
As a result, you need audio content as part of your overall content marketing strategy. This guide provides the information and charts you need NOW!
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FEATURED ARTICLE: 50 Best Business Books
Back-to-School doesn’t mean that you need to shell out thousands of dollars.
In fact, Marcus Sheridan recently announced on LinkedIn that he hired a marketer who didn’t have a college degree. (BTW, you’d be surprised that this isn’t an elite club!)
With the amount of information on the Internet, who needs to pay for the degree?
To guide you, use this list of 50 best business books.
The fine print:
- Unless noted otherwise, all photos are ©2020 by Heidi Cohen
- Some links in this email are for affiliate programs that will earn us a small commission should you purchase a product or service. Thanks in advance for your support.
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