Marketing is getting cheaper

There are a number of reasons, not the least of which is that a lot of smoke and mirrors are disappearing from the marketing environment with focus returning once more to basing everything on the most direct contact possible with consumers.

This immediately rules out all sorts of vague marketing gimmickry because the process of trying to maintain as direct a contact as possible with consumers is entirely logical.

Then, we have the wonders of technology - the internet, social media - and most of all interactivity. Being able to get responses from customers is something that simply could not happen in the past but with each day that passes new technology is allowing us to talk to consumers.

And this technology that allows us to talk to consumers is a lot cheaper than the shotgun approach of talking to a huge number of people via mass media and hoping that some of the shots will hit home.

This is not so say that the age of TV, Radio, Newspapers etc., is over in terms of being effective advertising media. They are still vital.

What I am saying is that marketing communications efforts in the future do not have to rely entirely on mass media.

Mass media gets attention, new media keeps it.

In a nutshell marketing is less about the hype of the past and more about the logic of the future.

Future logic is that if one can structure marketing strategy to be able to precisely identify a target market and then choose the quickest most direct route to communicate with it, ensuring a two way conversation, then its crazy to keep bringing out the bells whistles and dancing girls.

Whether this is retail or B2B - the best thing any marketer can do today is to take a step back and look at existing strategy to see where it can be brought up to date.

There are all sorts of simple tools available right now to make the process of checking on the efficiency of marketing - simply, easily and without costing an arms and a leg.