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Brian Halligan's 2010 Marketing Wish List

 

My 2010 Marketing Wish List:

1.  The word "campaign" goes away.  My blood curdles every time I hear someone talk about doing a "social media campaign" or "blog campaign."  Blogs and social media behave like compound interest, so if you treat them like "campaigns," you lose all the benefits.  Marketers should be permanently creating, optimizing, promoting, converting, & analyzing.

2.  The phrase "marketing automation" goes away until 2012.  99.9% of companies need "marketing transformation" -- the last thing they should be doing is "automating" the old rules of marketing into their business and ossifying themselves.

3.  The concept of a website should get turned on its head.  Companies spend 90% of their "internet" time worrying about what is happening on their website (their domain) when they should be spending 10% of their time there and 90% of their time out where the customers are -- blogs, other websites, twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc.  Your domain should turn into a glorified landing page.

4.  The PR industry transforms itself.  [Yes, I know some percentage of PR firms have already transformed.  If you are one of the enlightened, I wish you a breakout 2010!]

5.  Google's growth flattens as Adwords "efficiency" model finally gets "efficient."  Bing emerges as a viable competitor to Google.  I love Google, but I don't think it is "healthy" for one company to dominate an industry like they are doing.

6.  Madison Avenue keeps shrinking and the center of marketing gravity decentralizes to places like California, Boston, etc.

7.  Twitter stays independent. 

8.  Steve Jobs announces something/anything in a new, remark-able way that we can all learn from (again).  I am more interested in the innovative marketing practices he uses to announce his new "thing" than I am in the new "thing" itself.

9.  Geoffrey Moore writes a follow-up to "Crossing The Chasm" for the internet age.  Where are you, Geoffrey?  Your ideas are more applicable now than they were when you first wrote "Crossing The Chasm."  Shake us up with your brilliance!

10.  Marketers stop worrying about "social media ROI" and just start doing it.  What's the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?

What do you think?  Anything on your wishlist you'd like to share with me?

-- @bhalligan

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Posted by Brian Halligan on Mon, Jan 04, 2010 @ 02:22 PM

COMMENTS

That organizations in get over their fear of social media and embrace their communications with their consumer base. It's not going anywhere and it's only getting bigger, time to re-allocate resources and get involved people!

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:32 PM by Matthew Nelson


Great list Brian. I think number 6 is interesting and being a part of the diaspora has been awesome.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:32 PM by Jason


That companies realize the importance of having a well-designed piece of digital real estate that is easy to read, browse and navigate through. All the connection bells and whistles mean nothing if no one wants to spend time reading your content because it hurts their eyes!

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:36 PM by FirstTracks Marketing Group


Great list! I love Google AdWords and have no problem with them dominating the industry but you do make a good point of healthy competition. It would be better for the consumer indeed. Something I didn't think about until now.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:39 PM by Zaid Rasid


11. renewing the mind. It is more important to learn the thought process behind the new rules of marketing and not focus solely on the tools.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:41 PM by Dav id Horne


@matthewnelson I agree that 2010 needs to be the year that marketers re-allocate resources thinks about their organization metaphor from the ground up. 
 
@Jason I like how you use the word "daspora" here to describe the marketing community...it feels like a new, right way to describe it. 
 
@Zaid Yes, I love adwords too, but power begets evil, even for those guys.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:43 PM by Brian Halligan


Great useful info. 
I've been in hold position with my company. 
I get confuse sometimes on how to move it forward 
with all the internet fusion. 
 
Thank again.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:47 PM by karen


As I said on the twitters, I don't think 'campaign' is going anywhere. I can understand that social media efforts shouldn't be looked at in isolation. However, to assume that marketers live their entirety in a social media sphere is a bit naive. Campaigns makes sense as efforts focused around a specific goal. And if you remove the ability to set goals then you remove a primary means for measuring (and improving) yourself. 
 
#3 - excellent point, a website is useless if you aren't driving people there. You need to question your means for generating traffic constantly. 
 
#10 - While I agree you can't worry about ROI if you aren't in the game, I do think that marketers just need some good simple ways to measure Social Media Marketing ROI that don't distract them from their efforts.  
 
I have some ideas on that, but you'll have to wait a little bit to hear them ;) 
 
Thanks for the conversation provoking post, Brian. Have a fantastic 2010! 
 
Adam @covati

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 2:47 PM by Adam Covati


Brian- 
 
Again you came through for us! #3 is right on. Year 2000 - make the customers find you. 2010-Go to where your customers are and super-serve them! Keep up your great work - appreciate it.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 3:05 PM by Margie


Great list Brian! I'd love to see Geoffrey Moore write a follow-up to Crossing The Chasm for the internet age that addresses the social web. 
 
Thanks for your insights.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 4:14 PM by Warren Sukernek


Happy New Year Brian (and the Hubspot Team)!  
 
 
 
1) Yes, campaigns should go away or just be a subset oriented towards a set of messages that pertain to an idea about the company. A subset of something larger called "Company A's Social Media Program. 
 
2) Let's have 5 or 6 ad markets so that customers have the benefit of competition. Yah! 
 
3) Jobs, absolutely. Many others that should be put in the same category! 
 
4) Social Media ROI is a customer term and media specialists should keep it as one of those things that keeps them focused - as it is the principle arbiter of their value to the customer.  
 
 
 
Great Post, Have a great one! 
 

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 4:16 PM by John Stack


Brian, your wish that "campaign" would go away is a great insight. Although I see @covati's point that campaigns give us goals, I agree with you that the notion of "campaign" implies a big project that is planned, is launched, is measured, and is over. Marketing doesn't work that way anymore, in the age of social media. The buzz takes on a life, and a half-life, of its own. 
 
I had a recent blog post that relates: the new thought leadership in which marketers are members of communities as opposed to leaders of campaigns.

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 4:33 PM by Paul McKeon


Brian 
 
Given #8 - check out How to Present Like Steve Jobs - its worth the read! http://ff.im/-dM3r9 
 
see you next week in NYC

posted on Monday, January 04, 2010 at 6:22 PM by Paul Dunay


I totally agree about how Steve Jobs releases the "shiny object" is important in this day and age.

posted on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 at 1:16 AM by Jamie Favreau


Brian, I think you're doing yourself a disservice by wishing marketers would stop worrying about "social media ROI". 
 
There are zillions of "social media gurus" who "prove" that you should use social media by pointing out how many people are using it. That's just silly. In that case, we should all advertise in Chinese because a lot of people speak Chinese. 
 
We shouldn't think about the ROI, we should just do it, because, well, the self-proclaimed gurus say we should. 
 
What businesses need to see from social media gurus is proven results (yes ROI) and not results for social media companies, but results for companies that aren't selling social media services - companies that will still be around when the social media service companies who didn't think about their clients' ROI start dying out and only the ones who did remain.

posted on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 at 7:00 AM by Nat Dunn


All -- The link Paul Dunay sent over was particularly good and worth checking out: http://ff.im/-dM3r9  
 
@Paul McKean Thanks for sending the link. AdAge's 10 ideas for the last decade could be summed up as "inbound marketing."

posted on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 at 10:19 AM by Brian Halligan


hahahahaha "Marketers stop worrying about "social media ROI" and just start doing it. What's the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?" 
 
 
 
COULDNT AGREE MORE!!!!!!

posted on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 at 1:47 PM by Arizona Pest & Termite Control


Sorry, I had to come back and say this re: Social Media ROI ... 
 
If you aren't sure of the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning then try going into work without them for a day. I'm pretty sure you'll got back to the pants method after that! What I'm saying is that you actually already have a pretty clear idea of what the ROI is for wearing pants. 
 
The ROI for not taking part in Social Media efforts isn't as obvious. And thus the value proposition for Social Media isn't always as clear. In an environment where people need to be conscious of costs (including time) they need a reason to devote their sought after time to SM. Tracking and proving ROI is exactly the proof point they need.

posted on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 8:15 AM by Adam Covati


Yes - marketers should stop using ROI as an excuse to not dip their toes in the SM waters. 
 
But once they're in, Adam is dead on. Unless you're in the time-wasting business, all of the SM activity eventually needs lead to dollars in the cash register.

posted on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 10:01 AM by Eric Boggs


I love 'campaign'.  
 
 
 
I agree with #3, 4, 8 but as far as SM ROI goes, I think we'll see more people building their community and hanging 'integrated social support' strategies with clear Business ROI off of their communities. Same thing with mini social campaigns that can drive learning and increase partners or customers. Both of these examples offer easy analytics to any social-non-believers. 
 
 
 
A lot of companies that have invested time and resources into building their communities are now starting to ask 'so what' and the 'so what' needs to be figured out if we want to continue investing in social. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about social and actually have Scott Monty's 'what the ROI of putting on your pants' line in one of my social trainings, but I'm really focusing on true business impact this year to prove what I keep pushing is truly a game changer and a worthy investment.

posted on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 2:45 PM by Charl Pearce


I hate to be inarticulate but holy freakin' crap. Mind was just blown by a couple of these, particularly #1 & 10. The one-liners in those are great: 
"What's the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?" 
"Social media and blogs behave like compound interest."

posted on Wednesday, January 06, 2010 at 10:57 PM by Matt


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