Nothing New Under the Sun?

Nothing New Under the Sun?
Scott Dennison
05-05-08


Before I begin, let me wish you a happy "Cinco de Mayo!"

Perhaps you did not know that this Mexican holiday celebrates the beginning of the end of the war against foreign occupation and was first observed on the 5th of May in 1862. The holiday has been celebrated for over 145 years, so there's nothing new about it.

Interestingly enough, I don't recall ever hearing about it until Corona Beer became popular and Cinco de Mayo became a marketing event built around beer.

Sort of like St Patrick's Day. Now, any sober adult knows that there is historical significance to St Patrick's Day, (St Patrick being the patron Saint of Ireland and one of Christianity's most widely known figures) but here, in the US, it is being used more and more as a marketing event and an excuse to have a party.

Nothing new about that. When times are tough, none of us needs much of a reason to party.

What's any of this got to do with marketing? Besides the idea that just about any holiday is a great reason for you to communicate to your customers, you've no doubt heard the expression that "what's old becomes new again, if you live long enough", right? You understand this well if you have teenagers who begin wearing similar styles of clothing to what you wore in high school.

Well in marketing, it's much the same way. The challenges we all face in email marketing have lead to a resurgence in direct mail. Direct mail has been around for generations and is responsible for many a fortune being made in business, but when email marketing became popular, direct mail sort of fell out of vogue. Now its back in a big way. In fact, I'm in the research and planning stages of selling our services through direct mail.

Another example is that just last week a well known marketer built a product launch around concepts he is promoting known as self-liquidating offers. Yet, self liquidating offers have been around for ages. This is a sure fire way of getting leads where the cost of the marketing is paid for by the prospect, thus resulting in "free" leads. The costs of the campaign becomes self-liquidating.

There is nothing new about this except for the fact that someone well known has revised the marketing campaign and is promoting it as a "new idea".

As NBC once said about re-runs, "if you haven't seen it, it's new for you." The fact is, it's still a re-run.

Another example is taken from our own business. Online video is hot. There are many creative marketers looking for ways to promote it and profit from it. Underneath it all is the basic truth that online video helps people who buy online to like and trust the business owner a little bit more.

This is the major point I want to make, there is nothing new to the idea that people do business with people that they like and trust. But if you're not using online video in ways that make sense for your business, then giving it a try will be new for you... so celebrate!


~Scott
KeyThing Marketing Technologies