Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
David Merriman Scott, marketing and sales strategist, gave an inspiring #dse2016, keynote speech using numerous human examples of how real-time marketing should be used in content by the digital signage industry.
Scott gave a series of rules to follow, and the only thing missing was information on how marketing and sales can convince the money powers in their companies to give them (and perhaps increase) their budgets to use and adapt their current ways to best advantage in their own companies.
Among the topics and rules he touched upon (and these work, he showed, for both B2C and B2B) were:
- The importance of real-time content. Remember that you are selling to humans. Among examples he showed how Raytheon uses a full team of real journalists to create content.“You are what you publish,” he said.
- Free your content. Don’t ask for information abut themselves before giving your news or information. He showed as an example how the Grateful Dead allowed people to record their concerts and the value it gave them.
- Real-time is your secret weapon. If your marketing is focused on using data to prepare material for sales material to be used in the future, and weekly or quarterly reports, you aren’t using real-time. He showed how selfies, Twitter and other social media can be used in real-time marketing. He also, while steering clear of politics themselves, showed how Donald Trump is the only Republican candidate on the US current political scene, to understand and use real-time marketing.“Inject your ideas into real-time content,” he said, also showing the power Newsjacking.“Real-time is mindset, and you have to make that adjustment.”
- Be human. Don’t use stock photos. Use pictures of real employees and real customers. And don’t use the word ‘innovate or innovation’ in press statements.“It’s the most overused word in the industry,” he said.
- Learn to manage your fear.“The biggest barrier to getting into the use of real-time is fear, and you must get over that,” he said, stressing the fact the digital signage industry at least understands real-time.“You are living one of the biggest revolutions in history, when more people in the word have real time devices than have toothbrushes.
“Be part of real-time and stop making excuses.”
CEOs and sales and marketing people made up a large part of the audience. The real telling will be whether they convince the CFOs to loosen their purse strings and allow the industry to really use his real-time content ideas in their marketing and sales strategy.
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