Banner Advertisement

Quantum Marketing Theory: Relationships Matter. It’s always about relationships.

Posted on | June 11, 2008 | No Comments

by Tom Polanski

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” – John Wanamaker

I think we can all agree that the internet is like a giant calculator. Our ability to track is unparalleled and still, money is wasted by advertisers. In this new economic reality, we’re discovering a psychology where decision makers are more hesitant to make changes, take chances and, instead, are waiting for the storm to blow over. In my opinion, when times are tough there’s a tension and fear in offices that’s absent when everyone’s feeling flush. The tendency is lay low and fly under the radar. This means that there is a real need to be careful about waste. There’s a fragility today and little tolerance for mistakes.

We conduct billions of dollars of business everyday via e-mail, IM and telephones and it’s easy to forget that we’re dealing, not with numbers only, but with human beings who are bundles of passions, hopes, dreams and fears. And we have relationships with them. We’re connected.

Work in social psychology, cognitive psychology, and anthropology is making it clear that all learning takes place in settings that have particular sets of cultural and social norms resulting in expectations. These settings influence learning and transfer in powerful ways. If this is true in the classroom, and if it’s true that your job is primarily that of a teacher, then you must ask yourself questions that can’t be quantified but affect the ability to actualize success for your client, your company and yourself. These include but aren’t limited to the following:

  • Do you have a good relationship with your employer?
  • Is the environment you work in conducive to clear thinking?
  • Does your team spark your thinking in new directions?
  • Are you interested in long-term relationships?
  • Do you believe it’s more profitable to keep clients than to keep looking for new ones?
  • Does your media plan have a high probability of meeting or beating client mandated success metrics?
  • What quality relationship do you have with the decision maker?
  • Can it be improved?
  • What can be intuited from the sound of a decision maker’s voice, their posture?
  • Based on that person’s responses when you present new advertising opportunities, do you push forward in an ego-driven need to launch a new campaign?
  • Do you use your clients as new media guinea pigs?
  • How much of the company’s ethos is reflected through that persons responses?
  • What is that person’s relationship to the economy? What is your relationship to the economy?
  • How much would a person with that title earn?
  • Are they upside down on their home?
  • Are you upside down on your home and if so, are you desperate to close deals at all costs?
  • What, ultimately, is the cost, to you, of closing deals that have little chance of driving quantifiable revenue gains for the advertiser?

Furthermore, it’s critical that you understand your advertiser’s relationship to the marketplace which would include, of course, the audience. We all presumably study psychographical details derived from conducting current customer analysis for our clients but do we consider the demographics, the lifestyle, of the network audience we’re proposing to broadcast a message into?

For example, the MSN demographic, is highly educated, has a high average household income, primarily female and spends a considerable amount of time online. What advertisers, what products would have a high probability of creating a relationship with an end-user who fits that profile? What type of ad copy would that end-user respond to? What colors? How would you create a relationship with that person that results in a conversion? Once you’ve delivered a buying customer, is your advertiser prepared to create a relationship that will deliver a life time value for the advertiser and the customer?

Before you run a campaign ask yourself waste lessening questions like these:

  • Is my advertiser’s product/service the type that the chosen demographic will enter into a relationship with for the purpose of buying?
  • What will the relationship between the ad, the eye and the brain be?
  • In that relationship have I included causative agents that will compel the end-user to take the actions I want?
  • Once the end user goes to the landing page, what presentation will be made that will lessen the natural anxiety shoppers feel when they go somewhere new?

Of course there are many more to ask, but this gives you an idea of the direction I suggest you go.

In closing what does all of the data you’ve gathered tell you? What should your next move be? Will it enhance relationships or diminish them? Advertising isn’t an exact science and never will be as long as people are involved but, in my opinion, looking at relationships will help to eliminate some of the waste.

In quantum physics, a fundamental branch of physics with wide applications, the relationship between particles change and can never be duplicated as soon and as long as a scientist is put into the system to observe. The approach I’m suggesting could be viewed as my beginning theory of quantum marketing physics.

Comments

Leave a Reply