Rethinking marketing - (re)marketing thinking

It's almost ridiculous how much doesn't work technically in the so-called digital age. "That shouldn't really be a problem technically," I hear almost daily - but it is anyway.

Advertising sales no longer work in media and newspaper companies. So marketing (and the management that assists it) would have to look for new strategies for getting reading material to men and women. But instead of systematically evaluating customer data - so systematically that we can provide our readers with added value that is so valuable that even advertising for it doesn't get on their nerves - we practice shortage management, call here and there and ask whether an insert or a rectangle isn't needed after all - no? Then maybe next time.

This marketing merry-go-round continues to spin squeakily, not because marketers can't rethink, but because the really fruitful data analysis on which publishers could build a communications strategy to grab paying readers by the wrap still has to be searched for with binoculars. So we are still trying to sell ads to advertisers without a budget, instead of making the core of our work, high-quality reporting, palatable to the paying readership.

"The path from click to handshake is farther than the path from handshake to click."

I need a database that tells me which of my readers is having a problem with ad fraud, or which reader is interested in the latest marketing book, which reader is looking for an advertising sparring partner after starting a business, or who needs info on advertising budgets they could tap. "This shouldn't really be a technical problem" but apparently it is anyway.

Most companies still hardly know their customers, or not at all - this also applies to media makers. And because I can't address you specifically, certainly not if I don't know you yet (keyword: new business = necessary for survival), I'm calling out into the distance here: What you need and need to know is all in Werbewoche! Even if most of the people in our industry who are able to read simply don't know that. Because they think that a bit of the newsletter and 20 minutes is long enough information.

So because the targeted service of readers and those who should become readers is still not possible in a satisfactory way, we are suddenly putting on a very old hat again: Personal contact is an important success factor in the digital world, the ZHAW's "Swiss Marketing Leadership Study 2017" recently announced as a surprising new insight. Oh, really?! I thought "customer relationship management as sales support" was the "top trend in customer care at Swiss companies in 2017," as the study also notes.

What do we learn from this? That while it would give us a whole new level of access to our customers if we could evaluate exactly who needs what and when, and would therefore be receptive to a precisely tailored offer - "technically, that shouldn't really be a problem" - people don't trust push emails or posts, but rather the people or brands behind them, if they trust them at all. So while we need a potent CRM, we also finally need time to get out there and talk to people again, to "share" emotions, so to speak. Because the path from click to handshake is longer than the path from handshake to click.

Anne-Friederike Heinrich, Editor in Chief

f.heinrich@werbewoche.ch