Henning: Marketing must embrace digital, social media aspects

Here are five trends and transformations that all businesses, but especially smaller ones, can benefit from in the new marketing paradigm.

Keep your website tuned up. Don’t think of that recent website redo as a “one and done” effort. Continue to build out features that keep your content fresh and your technology up to date. As with all things, technological advances make systems and platforms obsolete faster than most businesses can keep up with. A plan that offers ongoing improvements will extend the life of your initial investment.

Everyone’s telling your story now, thanks to social media. Surveys say people trust recommendations from friends and colleagues upward of 10 times more than advertisers’ claims. What are people saying about your brand on Facebook or on sites like Amazon or Angie’s List? And social is not just for consumers anymore; even B2B companies must look to social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter to check the buzz about their company. People tune out traditional advertising and tune in to referrals and recommendations from friends and colleagues. Savvy marketers track feedback and engage in social media to help influence the influencers.

If you aren’t doing video yet, you’re already late to the party. Video is skyrocketing as the most preferred, most effective way to connect with your customers. Whether you’re using 6-second Vine videos, uploading to a YouTube channel, or embedding videos on your website and in your presentations, making video a core part of your marketing plan is a must in 2015.

Content is king. Today’s consumers are skeptical of advertising claims, and they can sniff out a marketing ploy at a moment’s notice. The pressure is on marketers to provide valuable stories, videos, information, emails, digital ads — collectively known as “content” — that customers rate as meaningful and relevant to their lives. Otherwise, they’ll tune you out. Your job is help people understand how your product fits into and solves the real problems that matter most to them.

This is not your grandmother’s storytelling. Today’s communications landscape is hyper-digital and super-fragmented, giving rise to convoluted phrases such as “fractured and “discontinuous.” Stories must take various forms, from bite-size chunks like Twitter’s 140 characters or Vine’s 6-second videos to long-form or serial offerings. This means your story must be consistent, but also adaptable to a variety of settings and situations.

The emergence of digital as a primary marketing tool is good news for Clark County advertisers. It’s tough to get the word out in this community, with limited media outlets and the prohibitive cost of broadcast buys that include all of the Portland area whether you want them or not. All the digital channels — websites, video, social — allow you to target and reach potential customers in cost-effective ways. And, of course, if your market goes beyond our community’s geographic boundaries, digital gets you there at the click of a mouse.

Betsy Henning is CEO of marketing and communications firm AHA!