Online marketing: understand the connections that customers crave

Sydney, 15 March 2021: It's difficult to recall a world before the web, but there are those who did spot the unfair advantages it gave people from the beginning - and took them.

One such person is global marketer, influencer and best-selling author David Meerman Scott. 

He was fired from his role on the trading desks at Thomson Reuters in 2002 for daring to suggest that they use digital techniques to communicate with customers directly. For the past 18 years, he's explained how digital marketing builds revenues, connects customers, and in his current best-seller Fanocracy, creates fans. 

In the first episode of Digivizer's new podcast Masters of Metrics, he reminds marketers that the power of social media and search means that marketers have no option but to market, connect, engage and sell in real-time - and to know what's going on in real-time.

The role of marketing: tap human connections

According to David Meerman Scott, at a time when people are hungry for true human connections, online is where people are connecting, increasingly around the things people are fans of. 

“People are hardwired to want to be part of a tribe of like-minded people. That’s when we feel safe and comfortable, needed, and like we belong," he says.

In an industry still wedded to the long-term plan, he reminds us that "anything can change instantly". He adds, "Somebody can say something about you or your company, or there can be a development in your industry, and you just toss everything out the window. And that's real-time. That's instant. That's right now, and that is what marketing has become. 

"And so few organizations, in my mind, are really focused on that. They're not thinking about what's going on right this second, right this moment, right this instant, and how they can use that as a way to generate interest among their buyers rather than just dreaming up something for the future."

Measure the middle

Organizations want to know whether what they're doing is working, and where best to invest their marketing dollars. His advice for marketers and business owners? "When it comes to measurement, many organizations choose to measure the first touch and the last touch, and don't think about what's going on in the middle. It's really, really important to understand where those bits of data are in the middle of the funnel. How can you measure what's going on during the whole buyer journey? I think that's a really important aspect of measurement.

"Businesses should look at their website and challenge how many times they use ‘we’ versus ‘you’. It’s difficult to build fans if you’re only talking about yourself and your products and services rather than what’s important to your potential customers," says David.

As to content, he's very clear on what he believes works: "Too many organizations, because they want to measure and because they want to generate sales leads, put a gate in front of too much content. I'm a big believer in making content free, making content so good that people will want to do business with you. Create fans, rather than trying to wrestle leads to the ground every step of the way in your sales process."

Listen to David Meerman Scott, hosted by Digivizer CEO Emma Lo Russo, at Masters of Metrics, at https://digivizer.com/blog/masters-of-metrics-david-meerman-scott-fanocracy/.

ENDS

About Masters of Metrics

Masters of Metrics is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want to get more from their digital marketing investment. Forthcoming interviews include Ben Cooper, Group Innovation Director at M&C Saatchi; Neal Schaffer, Forbes Top 50 Social Media Power Influencer and CEO of digital marketing consultancy PDCA Social; Tristan Harris, co-CEO of Harris Farms; and Nick Reynolds, Global CMO for Johnson Controls-Hitachi. Masters of Metrics airs on the Whooshka network. 

About Digivizer

Digivizer, founded in 2010, is Australia’s leading digital marketing analytics technology and activations company. Its digital insights help businesses get better results from their digital marketing, across owned, earned and paid media, in social, search and web performance. Digivizer gives businesses the information they need to make better decisions and improve their marketing ROI. 

Digivizer’s digital insights are available through a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform affordable to any business, and add-on digital marketing services. 

Digivizer is an ad, development and technology partner of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google, and is a marketing and agency partner to Google and Facebook.  It is also a partner of start-up venture capital investors Investible and Remarkable, and of global online retail platforms Shopify and BigCommerce.

Digivizer 30-day free trial plans are available at https://app.digivizer.com/register.

Contacts

Digivizer is at:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Digivizer
Facebook: https://facebook.com/Digivizer
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/company/digivizer
Instagram: https://instagram.com/Digivizer/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/digivizer
Web: https://digivizer.com
Masters of Metrics: https://digivizer.com/podcast

For more information: 

Alan Smith, Head of Strategic Business Communications, Digivizer. 

Phone: +61 404 432 700. Email: alan.smith@digivizer.com. Twitter: @alansmithoz   

Media assets

David Meerman Scott, on Digivizer's Masters of Metrics podcast: "When it comes to measurement, many organizations choose to measure the first touch and the last touch, and don't think about what's going on in the middle. It's really, really important to understand where those bits of data are in the middle of the funnel. I think that's a really important aspect of measurement."  Picture file available on request.