Brent Pohlman — June 27, 2017 — June 27, 2017
Over the last year, I have found that I have lost interest in searching. Before social media and the introduction of smartphones, I thought Google Search was very cool. Today, I find I just don’t spend time searching for news and interesting facts. I find myself looking at information a lot differently online.
I find myself looking more at
- the information being shared by my competitors
- getting caught up quickly on Facebook Posts, Linkedin News, The Latest Tweets, and pictures on Snapchat and Instagram
- headlines and notifications from the local paper and Wall Street Journal
- email headlines
- listening to podcasts
- watching videos, streaming over television, (Cut the Cable)
I find myself looking less at
- websites with pop-ups that take over the whole screen
- websites that are not optimized for mobile
In my, opinion, our customers are not going to our site like they once did. They are using their time to get caught up on their news sources. To me, this signals the need to migrate my marketing efforts more and more to a “Word of Mouth” approach. If people are not talking about our brand, it is going to quickly die. When was the last time you spoke about an item you bought at Sears or Payless? When was the last time you talked about an item you bought at Amazon or a 30% off Coupon you received at Kohls?
This is not about keyword search, SEO, content marketing. This is a much bigger deal. What are you going to do to keep your company from becoming irrelevant?
Watch what Amazon is doing?
The goal of Amazon is to permanently diminish the value of brands. Today, Nike is selling its merchandise to Amazon. Walmart has always been about reducing margins for brands if they wanted to be a partner of Wal-Mart. Amazon is no different. We are in the middle of some massive changes in our industry. The $ 13.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods should be a wake-up call. Have you tried finding your company brand on Alexa? Try it. Is this being done on purpose? I can’t answer that question right now.
What am I doing?
I need to move faster than ever and develop a stronger presence in all markets. It is going to be critical that people recognize our brand and understand the work that we perform. Also, I need to be active in our industry and make sure our company continues to be an innovative company. It is going to require investment, connections and new ways of thinking.
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