We’re very excited to present to you today a combination of fantastically informative features and the opportunity for you NYC-area folks to get the chance to win free tickets to see marketing superstars Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston at their G2 Marketing in the Round training, on June 20th, 2012 from 4:00p to 7:30p, which is based on their new volume Marketing in the Round.
Following the training, the two marketers will be joined by Michael Schecher, digital marketing director for Honora Pearls, to conduct a panel discussing best practices in integrated multichannel marketing programs to be moderated, by yours truly – Nathan Burgess.
Even if you don’t win the free tickets, we’ve got a discount code for $20 off the ticket price for when you decide you’d like to attend.
And so, without further adieu, a brief into to the concepts presented in Marketing in the Round and at the end of the page a download link for the excerpt and discount code for the event.
As for those free tickets – leave a comment below the post. The two best comments (as judged by Geoff and Gini) each get one ticket to the training in NYC. Comments will close, for purposes of the contest, on Tuesday May 15, 2012 at 11:59p Eastern. All travel, lodging, etc. costs are the responsibility of the winning party.
Why the Four Approaches?
By Gini Dietrich and Geoff Livingston
We’re thrilled to publish an excerpt from our new book Marketing in the Round on PRBreakfastClub. The piece focuses on the four primary types of approaches marketing strategists select when creating marketing campaigns.
Marketing in the Round focuses on building an integrated multichannel campaigns in the current social media era. Part of integration is understanding how companies approach markets and select tactics.
Rather than making up our own fancy list of strategies for the book, we decided to ground the strategy section in classic military strategy, specifically Musashi’s Book of Five Rings. This is primary theory that propelled Japan to become the world’s second largest economy in the last century, and still serves as the central arc of the country’s business philosophy.
In the Book of Five Rings we found the four approaches, which we translated to a more loving customer-centric viewpoint:
1. Direct: Communicating one-to-one with customers
2. Top Down: Public relations- and advertising-centric models seeking to influence markets from positions of authority
3. Groundswell: Creating customer movements through social media, loyalty programs, and other word-of-mouth techniques
4. Flanking: Using advertising and guerrilla marketing tactics to reach customers in unexpected ways
Certainly most sophisticated campaigns blend a combination of these approaches, yet they add context to understanding why a company chooses to market with them. Much of selecting approaches lies in how to achieve a series of corporate objectives and goals with the resources at hand, competitive positioning, and the general market landscape.
Once an approach is selected, understanding how tactics support them empowers strong collaboration across marketing departments to achieve goals. Individual disciplines can determine which tactics to use to help out.
For example, if leaking social videos and responses is important to support an overarching top-down advertising campaign, social media can focus on building a YouTube channel with social network integration, and hopefully, influencer buy-in and support.
Sounds nice, doesn’t it?
That’s exactly what Weiden + Kennedy did when they deployed their original Old Spice Guy advertising campaign.
So you can see understanding the approach helps the various marketing disciplines contribute to an overall campaign or initiative.
We hope you enjoy the excerpt. Hopefully, you’ll like it and attend our training and networking event in New York City on June 20.
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Geoff Livingston (geofflivingston.com) is an author and marketing strategist, and serves as VP, Strategic Partnerships for Razoo. A former journalist, Livingston continues to write, and most recently he co-authored Marketing in the Round, and authored the social media primer Welcome to the Fifth Estate.
Gini Dietrich is the founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, a Chicago-based integrated marketing communication firm. She also is the founder of the professional development site for PR and marketing pros, Spin Sucks Pro and co-author of Marketing in the Round.
And now the cool stuff –
Click here -> Marketing in the Round Exerpt to download your excerpt of Marketing in the Round (right click and “Save As” or “Save Target” to avoid opening in your browser).
The discount code for the G2 Marketing in the Round Training in New York is: prcog
See you there!