Comments on: The Company Is The Marketing

By: Paul May

Paul May — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:23:58 +0000

Completely agree…my sense is we'll see early adopters do this in the next 12 to 18 months and the early/late majority will be forced to follow after that.

Great post, Max.

By: Paul May

Paul May — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:23:58 +0000

Completely agree…my sense is we'll see early adopters do this in the next 12 to 18 months and the early/late majority will be forced to follow after that.

Great post, Max.

By: joeciarallo

joeciarallo — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:34:11 +0000

Hi Max,

Steve Rubel (an agency guy!) touched on this at Mediabistro Circus today:

http://www.mediabistro.com/prnewser/events/stev...

What I've heard in my many conversations with both internal and agency marketers is that “their simply isn't enough time” for everyone to be an evangelist/marketer. Or – Do I really want a developer or other often non-public facing employee “messing up” all this strategy and messaging I've worked so tireless to develop? Good “excuses?” Maybe not, but they're out there.

Indeed, “the goal of marketing is to build an authentic and stellar company reputation.” How companies get there will never be the same, but it is good to see new ideas continually being discussed.

Joe

By: maxkalehoff

maxkalehoff — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:25:12 +0000

Thanks, you're right. But the opportuny, for most companies, is only going
to get bigger. I would bet this becomes a top-three CMO issue within a
couple years.

By: Paul May

Paul May — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:25:09 +0000

The $64 question is whether any mid-size/large company is going to view this as more of an opportunity than a risk. One example – I've been talking to a company that's publicly traded ($200+ million in revenue), is growing at an obscene rate and is a Wall Street darling. All that being said, if they're going to maintain the growth rates they need to keep their stock price up, they're going to need to find new lead sources (their traditional lead sources are becoming saturated). They're looking at social media as a key area for lead gen, but the reality is that in order to get the volume they'll need, they're going to need the level of participation that you're talking about. This is an extremely aggressive company and this is a critical initiative…and still I don't know if they're going to get comfortable with the need to make this big bet. Brand control is practically muscle memory for many marketers and getting to a point where they're comfortable making it available to everyone in the company is a hard thing.

By the way, I believe this provides small businesses with an opportunity to disrupt markets in ways that would have never been possible before.