What do we miss in the concept of social media, mobile and video marketing?

Digital marketing has gone mental these days. I have been reading articles how marketers can engage their target audience or use new sales channels. Everyone talks about mobile marketing, apps, video marketing, new tricks in social media marketing and so on.

However, what most articles miss is the long-term perspective. They are too tactical. It's all about what you can do now and what the others do.


What about the long-term? How about planning, relationship building, increasing customer lifetime value and use of data?



I have developed the perception that pretty much everyone copies the big guys. But they copy the result of everything what happens behind the scenes. Once again, analysis, planning, implementation and control are essential. You cannot be successful if you do only implementation.

Let's get this right. Social media, mobile and video marketing sit in the larger discipline of digital marketing. Furthermore, digital marketing is type of direct marketing and they both are embedded in the overall concept of marketing. Therefore, all marketing principles, and precisely direct and digital marketing principles, apply.

Here is where social media, mobile and video marketing objectives and strategies stand in the overall business. Even if you chose social media, video or mobile as your main way of promotion and communicating to customers, you must understand how direct and digital work.

And this is not all. As a result of media proliferation and the boom of social networking platforms, making it in the digital world has become more difficult than ever.

Not only do you need business mind, strategic and analytical thinking plus tactical and creative knowledge, but also you must learn how to be social, engaging, different, up-to-date, adaptive, focused on content beneficial to your audience. 

You may think that this is obvious and every marketer knows this. You will probably say that it is common sense. And I will agree.

But I will tell you something. I have seen so many people who say that they plan and they follow best practice guidelines, that they are focused on long-term and that they genuinely care about sustainable business development and customer focus. However, hardly any of their words are implemented in the way they run  their companies.

Remember

You must be realistic and honest with yourself about issues related to your business.


You must find the balance between short-term profit and long-term sustainability.


And you must learn to distinguish between objectives, strategies and tactics.