Where would we be in a world without marketing communications?

If we stop and think about the trends we have seen, and continue to see, in how buyers find, investigate and choose potential suppliers the future isn't too bright for any of us. Marketing agencies and marketing professionals in general could well become extinct unless we adapt and evolve.

The death of marketing communications as we know it may well be a pessimistic view of the future, or there again it could be the beginning of something new and exciting. All the research we see indicates a slow but sure move of budgets from outbound communications to inbound marketing, from shouting about your brand to get your buyers' attention to delivering compelling experiences that create online conservations much more influential than any trade ad campaign. But where could it all lead?

 

Our role has to change but to become what? I believe we are already evolving, here's how:

From	To
Push	Pull
Promotion	Publishing
Shouting	Listening
Response	Responding
Persuasion	Infomration
Selling	Helping people buy

The list goes on, but so what? We are currently retained to ultimately build the sales funnel, to aid conversion of prospects to customers and to retain existing customers. Our role has often summed up in four words - find, get, keep, develop.

Beyond thinking suggests that, in a world without Marketing Communications this will change, our role will be to ensure that buyers come across the brands we represent in The Buyersphere, that what they hear about our brands is distinct and positive and consistent, that they find it easy to investigate and evaluate them and that when they are ready to buy, the response is appropriate, relevant and compelling. Maybe our future role can be summed up in four words also - listen, contribute, converse and satisfy.

You could indeed go further. In the broader sense as a B2B agency our role is help our clients sell more. Turn this around and our role becomes helping our clients' customers to buy more. Rather than being paid by clients and representing our clients' interests perhaps in the future we will be paid by buyers and we will exist to represent the buyers' interests. What effect will that have on our business model? And what then is the role of the marketing department? Perhaps in the future, as we try and encourage now, the role of marketing in B2B should be more internally focused, developing and delivering compelling experiences that buyers just can't resist?