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Conclusion

It’s not your imagination; marketing really has gotten harder. Markets are splintering, eyeballs are shifting, attention spans are waning, and the amount of information people are trying to absorb continues to multiply.* Where we consume media, and where and how we interact in person and online has changed at an astounding rate, and it is continuing to morph and expand every day. The only way brands and businesses are going to be able to adapt to and overcome these challenges is by conducting a virtual door-to-door campaign to win over their customers’ hearts and minds. That’s a lot harder and more time-consuming than bombarding the market with a one-size-fits-all message. Yet those companies that are willing to get in the social media trenches with their customers will see that word of mouth can allow each individual engagement to have an impact hundreds of times greater than itself. If marketers commit to Thank You Economy principles wholeheartedly, reallocate their marketing resources properly, and find ways not only to take advantage of the best that social media and traditional media have to offer but also to actually play them off each other, they will see an incredible return on any investment they make.

Anyone waiting for the marketing landscape to stabilize before incorporating social media into his or her business strategy is living in a fantasy world. We’re riding a really, really fast train; the changes we’ve seen mark only the beginning of the transformations yet to come. Stable isn’t going to happen any time soon.

So what to do? As always, it’s about hustle. Unfortunately, marketing has gotten harder at a time when many marketers have gotten softer. We’ve gotten used to running short sprints, not marathons, and we’re not built for the endurance game. That’s as true for many corporate-level marketers as it is for many entrepreneurs. Our great-grandparents were built for it. Whether they ran their own businesses or put in thirty years of service to a big company or factory, they were used to working their tails off with few of the technological innovations we can’t imagine working without. They’d never heard of work-life balance, and they knew better than to expect instant gratification. We crave both, but I think these will be luxuries in the Thank You Economy. The stars in this business era will be those who are consumed with their work (and happy about it) and have the patience to pursue one small victory at a time. This new economy offers tremendous opportunities to develop huge markets, strengthen brands, or build lasting businesses, provided you work for them with the intensity of Rocky Balboa training for his Cold War showdown in the snow-covered Soviet countryside. You’re in trouble only if you find that pill too hard to swallow.

The Thank You Economy has radically altered our customers’ expectations, and businesses are going to have to get creative and personal in order to meet them. As we do, consumer expectations will change, and the marketing initiatives we put out that might now be met with “Wow!” will eventually be met with “Meh.” The key, then, is to start thinking ahead. All businesses must innovate to survive. Social media gives us the opportunity to figure out what people want before they even know they want it. Using social media to talk to customers is like getting access to the most honest focus group that’s ever sat around a conference table and not paying a dime for their input. We have to listen, participate in the conversation, ask questions, and solicit feedback. We have to be more involved, and more attentive, and more interested, than we have ever been. We have to be better.

Part of being better will entail making sure that you’re weaving strong strands of Thank You Economy DNA, along with your own, into your brand or company. Then it’s about focusing your sights on aspects of your marketing strategy that until now might have been treated as secondary concerns.

The lifetime value of a customer, for instance, is going to become a bigger consideration. The Internet has given customers an incredible number of places to spend their money, as well as new tools they can use to spread your message farther and wider. Social media allows you to get to know your customers well enough to gather a true idea of what their long-term value to your brand might be. Developing a powerful emotional connection could be all it takes to convince them to consolidate their spending with you. Plus, now that purchasing decisions are directly affected by consumers’ relationships to the people they communicate with on their social networking sites, staying aware of who your consumers know and who they talk to regularly will become increasingly important. Every interaction you engage in with them will have the potential to spread through their network via word of mouth. When businesses realize that they need to focus on investing in customers, not platforms, they will see amazing returns on that investment.

Earned media, too, will become increasingly relevant. Just as there was a golden age of radio, a golden age of television, and one for movies, social media platforms have brought us into the golden age of earned media. Consumers are tired of being sold to. An op-ed article, blog post, or positive consumer review—the kind of free press that is often an organic result of a well-executed, engaging marketing campaign that allows traditional and social media platforms to work together—will go a long way toward making the marketing initiative you actually pay for stick longer and travel farther in the public’s consciousness. It’s bound to get harder to get earned media—now that plans like Facebook campaigns are gaining in popularity, the mainstream press won’t always fall all over itself to write about them—but while it lasts, it will be powerful, powerful stuff. Of course, the best of the best will always grab the press’s heartstrings, especially as technology continues to move forward to allow outstanding mobile and augmented reality campaigns.

Brands should also do everything they can to gain first-mover advantage. Marketers have to keep their finger on the pulse of the culture and keep an eye on the incoming trains. Smart marketers shouldn’t ever get too comfortable in their seats. Brands and businesses that can see the potential of emerging platforms will always have an edge over their competition. The brands that show up first on these platforms—the ones launched by people like former Facebook or Google employees—and take the first crack at building relationships with the early adopters they find there will see their foresightedness pay off.

Unless Wall Street undergoes a miraculous transformation and starts rewarding companies for their long-term strategies instead of almost exclusively for their short-term results, putting energy into hard-to-measure marathon plays such as lifetime customer value, earned media, and emerging markets will feel like a struggle, and even a risky proposition, to a lot of companies. The irony is that when executed properly, these marathons can reap dividends in a relatively short amount of time.

The companies that soar in 2011 and beyond are those that will figure out a way to balance the short-term demands of Wall Street or investors with the long-term demands of the Thank You Economy. Their leaders will begin by weaving strong strands of their DNA, laced with good intent, into the top layer of their companies, and allow it to infiltrate every layer of their business. They will accept that the customers have most of the power and be glad to give it to them. They will hire individuals and create new departments dedicated to building long-term relationships with customers and potential customers. They will stop relying solely upon straight, traditional marketing channels to spread their message, and instead allow their content to be passed back and forth (and sometimes around and across and through) as many platforms as they can reach. They will treat their business as an extension of themselves, and care, care, care.

People much smarter than I am have stated that we are living through a third industrial revolution.* But anyone who has been paying attention will realize that I’ve been saying the same thing (in my own style), for half a decade. The Thank You Economy is now, it’s here, it’s relevant, and I believe its scale may be bigger than any of us can even fathom. And it’s still very early.

This is such an incredibly exciting time to be in business. I know I’m right about the Thank You Economy—once you’ve tasted Champagne, you know it the minute you taste it again. It may take a little longer than I anticipate for the total cultural transformation to take hold, but ten years from now, I’m going to be on the right side of history. I implore you to be there with me. We will one day dust off the bones of companies that fossilized because they didn’t think it could “scale,” or because they didn’t think it was worth the effort, or because they could not stop drawing lines in the sand. The day you recognize that the Thank You Economy exists, and you begin to take the steps necessary to execute properly within it, will be the day you ensure your business or brand a place in the future.