You no longer have the option of signing one big purchase order for a giant trade show which everyone attends, or a magazine which everyone reads, because those things are dead. Instead you need to address lots of smaller audiences.
Seth Godin recently wrote that fifty years ago, for every broadcaster there were a million viewers, but that’s come down over the years to 100:1, because we’re all broadcasters to micro-audiences now. He asks what the world will look like when we get to 10:1, and it’s a great question. What does this mean for us in industrial and scientific marketing? More work, I think, but not necessarily more expense. What it means is that you no longer have the option of signing one big purchase order for a giant trade show which everyone attends, or a magazine which everyone reads, because those things are dead. Instead you need to address lots of smaller audiences: 100 people here on that Google search term, 100 people there with your Twitter stream …it all adds up to the same, and probably more. It’s a lot to think about, but it spreads your bets and is far less risky.