How attractive is another new marketing concept – really?

Posted by Stephen Priestnall on 13 April 2010 | 0 Comments

Tags: magnetic marketing, push marketing, pull marketing

Location-based marketing does have a ring of slightly desperate and frighteningly intrusive promotions being shunted at you as you trot past a store but it may be an interesting marketing tool.

Whether it justifies a new tag of ‘magnetic marketing’ is another question. Neither push nor pull, or in fact both… depending upon whether you’re nearer north or south pole is a lot to figure out.

 

We’re only just getting our heads around UGC and Web 2.0 – as evidenced by the proliferation of ‘top 6/7/8/9/10 tips for guaranteed social media success’ (try googling it) so it doesn’t feel right yet to introduce the next marketing planning J curve into the mix.

 

I’m reminded of the last significant disruptive change over the Millennium with the dotcom boom. Many were persuaded at that time to leave some of the established planning and communications craft skills behind in favour of innovative new tips and tricks using the ‘net’.  The key result was a number of poorly performing brands and business that lost their investors a great deal of money.

 

I look at flip.to in the referenced article and am impressed with the innovation and technology – but have no clue as to whether it will fly past beta into the welcoming arms of an economically successful business model. Maybe.

 

Meanwhile, location-based marketing is interesting but whether you’re being magnetic, pushing, pulling or permission-based prompting, you can follow some pretty traditional rules when planning end-user based communications. Its job in some form is to sell product or brand using a relevant combination of information, education and entertainment. Oh and it helps to know as many insights as possible about the person to whom you’re communicating. Where they’re standing at a single point of time may well be one of them.