The first amendment to the United States Constitution empowers the people of this country to freely say anything they want (unless it will cause a stampede, of course). Over the years marketers took this to heart and companies haven’t stopped talking at us since. But, just because you can speak doesn’t mean you should.
For some reason, when Jim Madison, Benji Franklin and all their buddies were sitting around in Philly, I don’t think they had TV commercials, pop-up ads or email blasts in mind. Companies started “talking” (back then it was mostly barkers in front of market stalls and Burma Shave signs) to let consumers know they had a product for sale. And the consumers wanted to hear it because there was no other means of finding out what was available.
Today, the times have changed and people actively work at avoiding listening to companies (i.e., spam filters, do-not-call lists, DVRs, caller IDs, etc.) Yet companies are still creating more and more noise. In the 1970s, laws regarding noise pollution and standards for noise reduction began to appear. It’s time marketers took cues from these acoustical reduction advocates and average consumers who are tuning them out.
Speaking
In the context of participating in the market conversation, the speaking objective is not met simply by speaking anywhere and certainly not by speaking only about your product. To really get people to listen, companies need to consider speaking to the overall market conversation with quality, supportive and helpful content that people want to respond to, inquire about and pass on to others.
- Where to Speak: It’s 2009, people! Speaking doesn’t just mean words coming out of your mouth. Companies are “speaking” whenever they put information out into the market conversation: speeches and podcasts as well as white papers and emails. The “location” for “speaking” will be widely influenced by your industry, type of product, target audience and many other factors, including what it is you have to say. To determine the best places to speak look closely at all of these factors and consider who you are trying to speak to. Look at budgets and other resources and map them against the expected number of listeners for different locations.
- Who to Speak To: Every business has different groups of people they need to speak to and those groups will likely want to hear different types of information given in different types of formats and locations. You certainly want to be speaking in an appropriate way to current customers and prospects, but keep in mind other Influencers like industry experts, trade organizations, publications, investors and partners. Influencers have an audience of their own and you want to try and speak to those people through the Influencers.
- What to Say: In this new concept of engaging/participating in the market conversation, this aspect seems to be the most challenging for companies (either that or they are just ignoring common sense and continuing to use their same old stale, self-serving, product messages.) Keep in mind that people are specifically tuning out marketing messages and ignoring/avoid marketing emails, ads, pop-ups, etc. So stop feeding so much of these things to the noise beast. Turn your messaging key words and points around and consider that your product fulfills a need or want for people and focus on speaking about how to fulfill that need or want. Use your speaking opportunities to help people understand more about their need/want in general and not just what your product can do for them. Be supportive of their needs/wants and offer advice, information, other options and extend ideas that go beyond just that single need/want.
