The Nightmare Before Marketing

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It was a long time ago,

Longer now than it seems.

In a place that perhaps you've seen in your dreams.

For the story that you are about to be told, took place in the marketing worlds of old.

Now, you've probably wondered where marketing comes from.

If you haven't, I'd say it's time you begun.

For marketing is the result of much fuss and hard work for the creatives that create it for us.

Well, you see now, quite simply, that's all that they do, making one unique content, especially for you.

But once a calamity ever so great occurred when two types of marketing met by mistake.

“Anytime there was Christmas or Halloween, it was great. It gave you some sort of texture all of a sudden that wasn’t there before”

— Tim Burton

When marketing went digital, we began to see small business like we never saw before.

Marketing changed when it met the Web in 1994 — with the first commercial companies building websites (the first official web page went up 8/6/1991).

Marketing for most small businesses before the web consisted of printed materials and ads in local publications.

To this day, I still see digital designs stemming from print designs done first (annual reports for example).

99% of proposals and estimates today are delivered as PDFs which was developed in 1992 to foster converting print to digital but as noted by the Nielsen Norman Group, a PDF should never be consumed online. Their study: “PDF: Still Unfit for Human Consumption, 20 Years Later” says PDFs online “jar user experiences”, “cause disorientation”, “unnavigable content masses”,”sized for paper not screens”.

Marketing for small business changed when the web appeared but businesses still fight with the old ways of marketing.

While most companies would say they’ve evolved, how many are part of the next evolution of marketing happening right now?

The 60 second short video

The reach I’ve experienced since putting out a short video every week since April of this year has been the greatest I’ve experienced in 24 years of marketing for my own company.

I’ve seen a 1000% growth in all of my social media channels but the bottom line is that people are seeing my videos, responding and reaching out for marketing help like never before.

Tradition is strong however and more so today because people don’t have time so they settle on default ways.

Content creators of every size — especially individuals, are building audiences like never before and monetizing these audiences and they are using short videos as their vehicle. This has been dubbed The Creator Economy and I believe it speaks to how important the creation of content is to marketing.

“All we must do is create!”

— Earl Nightingale · The Strangest Secret · 1956

And then there’s Earl Nightingale saying in 1956 “there really is no competition, all we need to do is create” which is a great reminder that some traditions never die and from within the fight of the old and the new can emerge the strangely beautiful.

Commit your company to putting out one short video every week — using just your phone — and see how this new marketing changes your organization.

If you want those videos to be easy to create and potent in their connective potential, hire us and we’ll get you set up.

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