Marketing’s big challenge is to synchronize people, processes and technology to deliver contextually relevant right-time, right-target messaging. Do this and your targets will make the time to engage and entertain your value proposition.

This was my takeway after contributing to the panel discussion at the Melbourne session of marketing guru Jay Baer’s Sitecore-sponsored ANZ tour last month.

If your target is “too busy” to return calls and/or respond to email traffic, then you are not sufficiently relevant.

Jay’s high concept is “Youtility”, marketing he describes as “so useful people would pay tor it”. He says we have to be prepared to “embrace the power of eventuality”. “Relationships come together over time, typically these are micro interactions,” Jay says. “Eventuallity” may be the right way forward, but it requires a high degree of organisational and cultural maturity and patience.

Here are Jay’s principal bullet points:

• Audience attention is fragmented
• Marketing and customer service has converged
• Marketing is now a spectator sport
• Stop trying to be amazing and start being useful
• If you are useful, your customers will keep you close
• Stop aiming at “top-of-mind” awareness and move to “friend-of-mind” awareness
• Relationships must be based on trust and value
• Smart marketing is about help not hype
• From friction to research
• We hyper research everything because we can
• 67% of the B2B purchase process is conducted online – Sirius Decisions
• Relationships are created with info first and people second
• If people have to call you to buy from you, you are doing it wrong
• The better you teach the more you will sell
• It is way easier to get caught now. The truth will always come out.
• Trust is the filter through which all business success must pass
• Differentiate with transparency
• Humanity is the ultimate trust builder
• 92% trust recommendations from friends and family. 47% trust advertising – Nielsen
• Don’t’ just change the message – change the messenger