Many companies seem to be looking to change their marketing these days. Actually, that’s not true. A lot of companies are considering trying some new marketing approaches these days. They have become enamored or curious about the new social media tools that are widely publicized and are trying to determine how it can work for them. This is a good spot to be in, but I’ve realized something is still missing. What’s missing is the appropriate mindset needed to use the social media tools, techniques, and stategies well. The old mindset won’t work with the new tools. They don’t mix. Seth Godin wrote an entire book about that called Meatball Sundae.

New marketing only works with the new mindset. Simply using the new tools with the old mindset won’t bring about the marketing change you need and want.

The old marketing mindset can be summed up with these five traits. I referred to them as the characteristics of an arrogant marketer yesterday:

1. Arrogant marketers assume consumers are interested in their products or services.
2. Arrogant marketers assume consumers care about whatever they have to say.
3. Arrogant marketers donít care that they completely interrupt peopleís lives.
4. Arrogant marketers tell consumers their product or service is the best even when they know it isnít.
5. Arrogant marketers are willing to sit back while bad marketing ideas are discussed and ineffective campaigns are created. They know better but remain silent.

The new marketing mindset consists of these five traits. If the old marketing mindset is arrogant, it’s fair to consider these the characteristics of a humble marketer:

1. Humble marketers know consumers are already bombarded by an average of 4,000 promotions every day and therefore don’t want to create marketing campaigns that consumers won’t pay attention to anyway.
2. Humble marketers assume the consumer is smart, saavy, and knowledgable. They speak the language of smart.
3. Humble marketers try to add value to the people they hope to reach and understand that by adding value they earn the attention they desire.
4. Humble marketers know they’re violating a trust with consumers when they interrupt their lives and that interruptions become annoyances and annoying companies don’t succeed.
5. Humble marketers are just as interested in protecting the interests of the people they want to reach as they are protecting the interests of their company or client.

The Two Things You Need

If you really want to change your marketing, you need to do two things: adopt the new mindset and then (and only then) begin to learn how to use the new tools. As you can see from the image to the left, that’s where change happens.

There’s hope for the people who make the mindset shift and haven’t gotten the new tools yet. They’re so close to change. They just need to get started with the new tools.

For the group that has the old mindset with the new tools, prepare to be disappointed. You won’t see the change you’re looking for. You can only get what you’re looking for with a paradigm shift. Perhaps you’ve tried a few things and they didn’t work like you thought they should and have determined the tools don’t work. That’s not the case at all. The tools work fine, just not with the old mindset.

And finally, for the those using the old tools with the old mindset. First, let me welcome you to this blog. You probably haven’t been here before. Second, I hope you’ll consider what’s here. It’s not that what you’re doing doesn’t work. It does. It just doesn’t work as well as it used to and it’s continuing to be less effective every year. At some point the tide will turn completely and then what will you have?

Tags: language of smart, meatball sundae, new media marketing, Seth Godin, social media marketing

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 11:57 am and is filed under Seth Godin, blogs, language of smart, new media marketing, social media, social media marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.