You Can’t Resist Change As Pikachu Proved To You

If you resist change, all you do is hamper your own opportunity.

Lets look at why you can’t resist change.

If your world is B2B, opportunity has historically been driven via leads.

Leads are expected to provide an opportunity to sell more of your products and services. This means that the focus has been driven for generations on driving traffic based on the merits of a company, rather than shifting that to serve an audience.

From the corridors of LinkedIn to the rooms inside Twitter, many businesses are happy to stick to ways we have behaved for generations within spaces that are relatively new to all of us. You tell the world how good you are, you aim to sell quickly, you repeat.

What if you adapt to where your marketplace is today and serve them in a space that they prefer?

 

What Nintendo Have Just Done

Nintendo have just enjoyed their biggest share price gain. Their stock has increased from £13 billion to £19.6 billion, since the introduction of PokemonGo.

This is their highest stock increase in 30 years.

Whilst gaming brands have remained loyal to the console as the true destination experience, last weeks introduction (Thursday in the UK) to distribute a massively popular game (Pokemon was originally released in Europe in 1999), highlights the need to serve an audience in the medium they prefer to use.

Prior to the release in Europe last week, as of Monday 11th July, PokemonGo was reported to have 21 million daily active users. As a comparison, Candy Crush at its peak was played by 20 million daily users.

According to the statistic portal, Statista, UK revenue from games consoles has decreased from £915 million in 2014, to £689 million in 2015. Does this mean that people are playing less than they did?

Not at all. Gamers have moved online/portable/mobile in a short space of time. Market research firm, Euromonitor highlight that in-game purchases will grow by 20%, to reach £22.3 billion in 2016.

To many console brands, this can be seen as an uncomfortable shift of behaviour.

 

Chasing Better

Businesses are constantly looking at ways to have better direct relationships with consumers. However consumers are prepared to have one when it is on their terms and where they prefer to consume.

Back to your business.

We all feel warmly attached to comfort.

• the great deal to appear in a magazine because there is an audience who read and might take notice of your editorial/advert

• the ease to add a link about the ‘new business win’ from something that happened within your business last month

• spend more on Facebook ads as it gives a wider reach

• Google Ads means more people have an opportunity to see

• paying an annual subscription to join a group/chamber/network and the gratification of handing over a business card at a networking event to a stranger who might buy

• clicking the ‘publish’ button for the new blog article

• posting more stuff in more places about what you do

In other words, while the lure of editorial alongside the half page advert was seen as a magnet in 2010, audiences today are shifting to a plethora of places.

Not everyone wants to read text on a screen that is in front of them. No one is getting excited over the thought of more content from you, if it isn’t solving a problem, making their lives easier or coming from an area of knowledge.

Effectively if you are standing still and relying on communication methods driven by price and ease, then interest is only consumed by you.

It all comes down to adjusting behaviour to be in tune with where your audience is and what influences them.

When An Audience Becomes A Roadmap

This is something WH Smith is achieving this summer by associating with YouTube celebrity Zoella and their regular Book Club (alongside high street stalwarts Richard & Judy).

Zoella comes with a ready made audience of nearly 11 million YouTube subscribers to WHSmith (still two million behind KSI, who? Click here, let me explain to you about KSI). Zoella’s audience take notice, including book sales rocketing for some of nearly 95%.

What I am trying to highlight here is that tried and tested models of conventional celebrity have been taken over by people who come with their own community. Change comes from recognising who an audience is and the channels they prefer, not the channels you think they consume.

Your audience can become the map that provides direction.

 

Get Good, Diversify

I am a believer that to build an audience you can’t relentlessly remain stoic in one place, all the time.

The one word that I stand for is ‘ownership.’ To demonstrate my cause, I originally focused on the blog (that you’re reading now) and have been consistent for four years, since January 2012 (have a read of the first rubbish article here). In 2014 I committed to writing a book (published last year) and in 2015, the Marketing Homebrew podcast was seen as the next natural step (and now listened to in 56 countries). Whilst a written medium is still key, it is not the only content approach.

As a small business you can be more focused on your audience, with less resources behind you (the biggest resource being time).

Everything stems from a change of mindset, but sticking to a plan of action (or having a content strategy in place).

In an interview with Mitch Joel (author of Ctrl, Alt, Delete) for the Talking Content Marketing project, I asked him about the need for businesses to change their mindsets. He stated, “Most brands go into channels to sell from them instead of learning to become part of the culture.”

“Brands look at channels as an engine for advertising rather than an engine for marketing. If we look at a true marketing approach this is defined as solving a problem by providing digital solutions using the layers of communication as paid, earned, owned and rented. Most businesses hone in on the paid in the hope that they can earn on it.”

You can read the full interview with Mitch Joel by clicking here.

 

Lets Round Up

From the perspective of your business, to be relevant within your marketplace you have to acknowledge that the marketing and communications landscape is changing.

Opportunity is created when you understand what you stand for within your marketplace, really lean into it and then adapt that message within different media formats.

To be heard and acknowledged you have to become uncomfortable whilst others remain complacent.