The Marketers “New Normal” – A Manifesto

As Bob Dylan sang, the times they are a changing. For marketers, now the times are a changing more than ever before. Think about the landscape shift we have seen in marketing communications over the last 24 months alone. There have been incredible amounts of change and evolution in marketing mediums, and most importantly the connections, community, trust and influence that the social web has brought to the forefront.

The future is now:

Today, if you are a marketer, and you are ignoring this fundamental shift in communication, you are doing both yourself and your company a large disservice. You are putting your job on the line, and it will be just a matter of time before your organization “shifts” with or without you. As marketers it is our duty to leverage all of the tools that are available to us today.

Are you on the bus or off the bus? That is the question any savvy marketer must ask themselves these days. Sure, every market and industry is different, but everyone is going to be affected this time (they already have, many just don’t know it yet). This marketing communications landscape shift isn’t just another “tactic” to include in your media plan, this is the new frontier of marketing communications. We are in the future now.

Is your marketing department adaptable?

To me, one of the secrets to success in today’s marketing landscape is having the willingness and ability to adapt. The ability to change, hence the marketers “new normal.” What is the new normal? According to me, the “new normal” for any organization should be the ability to constantly change, with the times, the technologies, and the mediums that are literally evolving the way that we think about communicating and engaging with our customer base.

The “new normal” should always be morphing. They say, the only constant is change, and that is so true when it comes to today’s marketing landscape. As marketers, we can no longer be set in our ways. In today’s world, our ways need to be constantly changing because the optimization of our efforts is never complete. As our VP of Strategy & Innovation Chris Penn says, there is always more juice to squeeze!

Are you taking action?

Now is the time of new thinking, experimenting, evaluating and adapting. This is the time. Your company’s marketing department should be morphing into a publishing organization, and leveraging the power of your customers and subscribers networks. As I have said several times this year in my speaking, 2010 is the year of social acceleration, and TRUST and INFLUENCE in the social web will drive more purchasing decisions than EVER before.

So, as we move forward in 2010 and the landscape continues to change, it is important that we as marketers stay nimble and light. Now is not the time to “over process” your marketing function, but rather to test the waters on new mediums, learn more about your existing subscribers (social graph), build brand ambassadors and evangelists (easier said than done, yes), and most importantly LEVERAGE what is beyond your control…… the thoughts, opinions, recommendations and influence of your existing base.

Think about it.

Am I off? Tell me what you think in the comments.