One of the five digital trends to watch as outlined in our white paper is what we're calling "The Power of Pull." In essence, this refers to creating value-added digital content and utilities that people will find on their own online and engage.
Leo Babauta of Zen Habits, author of the new best-selling productivity book, The Power of Less, is someone who shares our thinking so I have invited him to contribute the following guest post (although the views expressed are his own). We look forward to hearing your comments. Over to Leo...
Recently I ruffled some feathers in the marketing and advertising communities when I recommended, in my free ebook Thriving on Less, that people avoid advertising as much as possible in order to avoid having new desires created in them to buy more.
Advertising and marketing is designed to create new desires in us, I argued, and if you're trying to live a more frugal (but more full) life then you should avoid advertising.
So Steve Rubel -- a man for whom I have much respect -- asked me what the marketing world should do in light of my recommendations to consumers (also known as "regular people"). It's a great question, and something I've dealt with myself as I've worked on marketing my blog (Zen Habits) and my book (The Power of Less) to good success.
I built Zen Habits from nothing, with no resources, to one of the Top 100 blogs in the world within its 
first year, based completely on principles of what I like to call "The Tao of Marketing" -- based upon principles found in Taoism. I've used the same principles to make my book an Amazon best-seller within its first day.
Let's take a look at The Tao of Marketing, and how you can use it successfully.
The Challenges of Marketing Today
We first need to assess the world in which we find ourselves -- to recognize the landscape for what it is, and to accept it and work with it.
Marketers find themselves in a very different world than existed just a decade ago. The Internet has changed everything, from product marketing to personal branding to presidential campaigning. Just a few points to make:
- In some ways, marketing is easier these days, as there are more viral ways to spread the word about a new website, product, service, brand.
- In others ways, there are greater challenges, because there's greater competition -- anyone can compete these days, with unknown individuals (such as myself) having the ability to go head-to-head with the giants ... and sometimes win.
- Even more challenging is the mindset of the consumer/regular person. We are more informed than ever before, often more cynical, less tolerant of spam or gimmicks or pushy marketers. We want things that are real, genuine, valuable. We can't stand slickness, overbearingness.
Given these points, let's take a look at what marketing was (in the days before the landscape changed) and what it can be, with the Tao of Marketing.
The Old Way
Advertising, to start with, has spent decades refining techniques that create desires within the consumer, and this method of persuasion is a form of control. And it works, even to this day. People who didn't know they wanted an iPod before, who didn't know they wanted an iPhone or Macbook Air, or a Google Android device ... will instantly crave it when advertising is done with them.
The problem is that with the economy taking a dive, people are realizing they have to change their habits. With this realization comes the realization that they've been manipulated by advertising for years, and that it has to change. More and more people are blocking ads on websites, are using Tivo to skip TV ads, are shutting off ad-supported radio in favor of digital music.
Marketing faces similar problems. Marketing of old was (and still is) a pushy industry, forcing a brand down people's throats. The pushiness reached a pinnacle with junk mail and then, when email became big, spam. It's aggressive and it worked for awhile but people got tired of it quickly.
The result is that they are much more resistant to any kind of aggressiveness, pushiness, and don't like being controlled or manipulated. The landscape has changed, and so must marketing.
The Tao Way
Marketers must adopt an entirely new strategy -- more than that, an entirely new mindset. They must get away from trying to create new desires in people, trying to push and force themselves on people, trying to control people.
Instead, find a more natural way. Find out what people want, and then give it to them. Offer them value, and they will appreciate that. Be a resource. Give things away. Don't force -- let them come to you, because of all the value you offer.
Here's how:
- Accept things as they are. Marketing and advertising have tried to change people, but instead it's smarter to accept the landscape, and people, as they are. Learn to understand people, what they want, and give it to them. Don't change things to suit your needs, but change your methods to suit things as they are.
- Don't control. Let people be free. The content industry has tried to control people, without accepting the changing landscape of its industry, and it has backfired on them. Their controlling has pitted their own customers against them, and they're losing the battle. If instead they embraced the desires of people to be free, they could have gotten ahead of these changes, and given people DRM-free, restriction-free content to download and share. They could have found ad-based systems, or other business models, based on giving value to people. Controlling doesn't work these days -- let people be free.
- Don't force. Pushy marketing, forcing yourselves on people, is not acceptable anymore. Instead, find the path of least resistance. Be like water -- flow with the landscape. This means more flexibility, the ability to read the landscape as it changes, the ability to adapt with the changes and be what you need to be. Steve Rubel has done a great job of this, becoming an early blog adopter before the rest of the marketing world understood what blogging was about, becoming a Twitter power user when others are still trying to get it. He flows with the changing landscape, rather than trying to bulldoze it.
- Do less. Marketers tend to overdo things, which makes people sick of them, leery of their methods and message. Do less. If you find yourself doing a message blitz, back off. Create a more powerful and attractive message, and let it speak for itself. A great message will go viral, which is much easier these days with social media. But if a message isn't great, not only won't it go viral, but blitzing the message will create a negative effect.
- Do small things. Little things can go a long way these days. Doing nice things for bloggers, helping websites succeed, releasing something for free, giving away valuable advice and information, creating a useful resource, providing small daily tips through Twitter, writing a useful blog post, being friendly and kind to others online ... these little things can make a big difference over time. It might sound corny, but it's true. I've proven it with Zen Habits and The Power of Less, and Steve has proven it with Micro Persuasion.
- Be valuable. Give people what they need, give away value, and they will appreciate you for it. Creating a slick new website designed to go viral only works in planning meetings ... but creating a free tool to help people find what they need is valuable. Writing a blog to help them actually do what they want to do is valuable. Creating a forum to help them discuss what they want to discuss -- something they might not find elsewhere -- is valuable.
- Attract, don't smother. By creating value, a powerful message, you can get people to come to you, instead of trying to smother them with your message and brand. If they don't come to you, rethink the message, rethink the value you're offering. You'll need to get your message out there, undoubtedly, but do it with the aim of attracting, not smothering.
Read more from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, or read his new book on achieving more by doing less: The Power of Less: The Fine Art of Limiting Yourself to the Essential ... in Business and in Life.
