Stick around long enough and you begin to see patterns in everything, particularly in the changing face of marketing options for small business.
In his book Youtility, author Jay Baer speaks of the long-time marketing strategy called Top of Mind Awareness, or TOMA. “When America had three major TV networks, it was easy to reach people with a single commercial,” Baer states.
The Media Challenge
But the TV market has changed, as stats from Baer’s book show. Consider the #1 TV shows over the last 4 decades, and the percentage of American households with TVs that tuned in:
1977: Happy Days (31.5%)
1987: The Cosby Show (27.8%)
1997: Seinfeld (21.7%)
2007: American Idol (16.1%)
2011: Sunday Night Football (12.9%)
The interesting thing in these numbers is not which show is #1 in any given decade, but the slow decline in the number of people “tuned in” to the #1 show. It’s not that we are no longer watching TV. We are, in fact, watching more TV than ever – but over hundreds of channels, and often viewing more than one screen at a time. That makes it harder than ever to gain attention – and as Baer says, “You can’t promote to people you can’t find.”
The Solution
Throughout his book, Baer stresses the solution to the fractured media landscape and ultra-short attention span of entire generations is Youtility: Massively useful information, provided for free, that creates long term trust and kinship between your company and your customers.
The strongest points, in my view, are these:
- If you sell something, you make a customer today. If you help someone, you may create a customer for life.
- You have to understand what your prospective customers need to make better decisions, and how you can improve their lives by providing it.
- Use Social Media to promote your useful information first, and your company second.
And the most important point:
Being useful must be part of your company DNA.