Try not to spend too much time in the present when doing marketing planning. It’s okay to look to the past to help understand big trends and how they have changed. After you get the how, you need to overlay the why – that’s da monies, the why. Then spend your time thinking about the future.
Most marketers, marketing agents and the less important though well-financed consultants spend their time in the near-past. Today, geo-location services and check-ins are the near-past and though not exactly a mine denuded of its ore, they are where many marketers are spending serious time and money. Slates and tablets are the haps today and as a billion dollar business will take up a lot of time, energy and GDP but like Robert Scoble’s kid said couple of month ago, it’s just more stuff to put in a backpack. Tech companies are now fighting over form, size and inches.
What’s Next?
So what’s out in front? For marketers, what is ahead of the dashboard? I believe the answer is politics, planet and populace. It used to be easy to not pay attention to what went on in the Congo when it was buried on page 27. But how about when it’s in your stream. In living color? And will people pay for that? Will people pay for the right to tune in via Google Earth any event in the world in real time? Who needs Al Jazeera? I wrote yesterday about the web strategy called the 3Cs: Content, Commerce and Community. Tom Friedman who has more power than 95% of us will tell you the 3 P (Poppe knows from 3 Ps) is what’s next. Let them guide you. Peace, the verb.
