Winning in the Post-Brand Era (post 4 of 4)

Read post 1 here
Read post 2 here
Read post 3 here

Now what?

Marketers have reached an era when branding has lost some of its mojo.  The ongoing excellence of highly targeted marketing tools counterweigh the classic brand by making it possible to drive sales at a sharply reduced cost.  Marketers now must ask themselves "what's the best mix of approaches to accomplish our goals?"  How do marketers win in a world where they can't expect the brand to serve as the organizing principle?

Marketers must shift their focus from the destination, so to speak, to the Journey.

No, not that Journey

Still the wrong Journey

Now you're cooking with gas

McKinsey Consulting promulgated the concept of the Customer Journey a few years ago as a means for comparing disparate purchase paths.  However, it also doubles as a nifty way for organizing marketing communications.

Enter (to win) the Dragon

:Few acquisition tactics appeal to marketers as much as the sweepstakes does.  Spend any amount of time on Facebook or in your email inbox and you’ll find a request like this one:

Please don’t enter; this one’s mine

From personal experience, I can tell you that no matter how little effort a marketers put into promoting sweepstakes, thousands and sometimes millions of consumers will enter.  I can also tell you from personal experience that many if not most of those marketers will over-value the entrants.  So allow me to propose an alternative approach for using all those entrants.