Many entrepreneurs feel challenged by the numerous new marketing channels and some are overwhelmed. Because we all know we need to keep up with the times, many have tried the new digital opportunities – and most of them have failed.
These issues are exactly what this book is about. It reveals the secret that lies behind digital marketing.
The digitization of the economy is not an evolution, it’s a revolution. Marketing is no exception. Even here, everything just keeps changing at a tremendous pace.
Most entrepreneurs know the following from one’s own experience:
“Our Facebook fanpage? That didn’t bring us a single customer.”
“Google AdWords? All we’ve done is lose money!”
“We’ve invested heavily for Youtube, our promotional video cost us thousands, but unfortunately, it didn’t help.”
“We can’t generate new prospects with our blog. Nobody wants to read long posts any more – and we have no time to write them anyway.”
These are typical answers when talking with entrepreneurs. The frustration is huge, and for many, their view that marketing brings nothing, even with the new digital channels, has been solidified.
It’s not about fancy tools; the point is that you become relevant to your customers
What is central to today’s modern 21st century marketing? It’s not primarily about all the different tools that send social signals or create the perfect website. What you need to have, today, as a successful marketer and entrepreneur, is a new attitude, a new “mindset,” as the Americans say.
The vast majority of entrepreneurs today all make the same basic marketing mistakes, and it goes like this: He takes his old, handed down understanding of marketing and applies it to the new channels because he believes that the basic problems are still the same, only with new channels.
But this is wrong. It’s not about new channels. It is about fundamental, new answers to a whole different way of thinking.
To quote Albert Einstein: “The issues remain the same, but the answers have changed.” To say it in one word: It’s all about authenticity.
If your customers realize you have something with real value for them, then you will be of interest. The more authentic you are in your message, the stronger and more sustainable the interest which you generate by your marketing becomes.
Digitization has also turned marketing completely on its head
The digitization of the economy has brought the marketing environment full circle. In short, the development of the Internet has meant that customers today can quickly check the truth of a marketing statement online and discuss it with their friends on social media. In addition, the competition is no longer local but has a global reach – and is only a few clicks away – and this even reaches into areas that were long considered fairly recession-proof. The most important change is the enormous increase in information that can often keep traditional marketing from getting through to the customer.
While the prevailing opinion is that marketing still has mainly to do with the exterior, with pleasant appearance and often with exaggeration and lies, the marketers of the 21st century must rely entirely on genuiness and authenticity.
In this book, I bring you in as you bring your marketing into the present and make it a success driver for your company. I’ll show you the strategic relationships – “the Big Picture,” as the Americans say – and then reveal some secrets of the various tactics of digital marketing that I have appropriated in my almost 20 years of activity in the field of communication and marketing.
Digital marketing is a very powerful tool that I’ve used very successfully for many of my clients.
Dr. Anna Straub, director of the Executive Master’s Degree in Arts Administration program from the University of Zurich wrote me:
“Your work is of the highest value for us, because thanks to the measures taken in digital marketing and brand management, we have today gained the best students for our course. They are obviously quite at home in the complex world of digital marketing. Thank you for these excellent results!”
I’m not writing this to show me in a particularly favorable light – I just want to make it clear that these strategies and tactics actually work. But – you will need to update your understanding of marketing, not only with respect to the methods, but fundamentally.
Are you a talker – or a doer?
It is important to me that you apply the know-how from this book yourself, so this book has a bonus area on the Internet that is available to you free as a reader.
You will find a complete online course there, which will allow you to deepen your knowledge in the e-learning process, independently and at your own pace. This online business training has been specially created for this book, part of which I have already worked through with my students at the University of Zurich.
The online course is the ideal supplement to the book and allows you to apply the knowledge you have gained from the book in practice. This is important, because knowledge only helps when it’s put into practice.
Pablo Picasso put it this way: “Action is the foundational key to all success.”
In the online course, we work with various software tools, especially in the area of target groups and keyword analysis. We primarily use free tools to help you get where you’re going with little financial outlay.
The bonus section also includes a chapter summary (key points) and the worksheets for the exercises that are at the end of each chapter.
The bonus section also contains links to some additional tools to help you in implementing your digital marketing strategy. You will also find some links to free image sources on the Internet, of far higher quality than the usual Stock Photos.
You now have the choice to either die as a pessimist, or: get up and win.
The most Important thing is that you understand the shift in marketing taking place right now – the fundamental shift in the concept. Marketing of the 21st century is no longer the marketing of the 20th century – it’s moving away from inflated hypocrisy to true authenticity.
You now have two ways to deal with this development. Either you fall into the typical European cultural pessimism (“Everything was better!”), lamenting the change and waiting to see it all go down the drain – or wade right in, roll up your sleeves, take the bull by the horns, and acquire the necessary knowledge.
Take advantage of the opportunities that present themselves to you now! You now have the opportunity to take a big step forward and leave your competition far behind.