When prompted to define sustainable marketing, I often use the contrast between eyeballs and hearts-and-minds marketing.
Eyeballs marketing: “My eyes!”
Eyeballs marketing aims to reach as many people with as many touches as possible on the company’s terms. Eyeballs marketing knows it takes a number of times to just get its message registered and remembered, not to mention acted upon. Its drive for quantity serves to lower the cost per impression or thousand views. Eyeballs marketing is a numbers game.
Eyeballs marketing pushes. Initiative comes from the company, and is directed toward the customer as the intended respondent. Eyeballs marketing is good at generating demand. It goes for the hard sell.
Eyeballs marketing interrupts your attention to get its point across – hence the label interruption marketing. Think advertising, commercials, cold calls, telemarketing, direct mail, spam, billboards, sales promotions, guerilla tactics, and so on.
Eyeballs marketing interrupts what interests you: You want landscape? Here’s a billboard. You want a show? Here’s a commercial.
Eyeballs marketing is unidirectional. It speaks in terms of target groups, channels, touchpoints, funnels, campaigns and other military terminology.
Hearts and minds marketing: “Listen to your heart”
Hearts-and-minds marketing aims to reach the right people at the right place and the right time. Meaning, on their terms – where and when they want to be reached. Hearts-and-minds marketing goes for quality, with the value metrics that go with it. It’s a relationships game.
Hearts-and-minds marketing pulls. Communication originates in the customer seeking the company’s message, and is directed toward the company – the respondent in the equation. Hearts-and-minds marketing excels in satisfying real demand, particularly as it relates to strengths and virtues. Hearts-and-minds marketing goes for the soft sell.
Hearts-and-minds marketing attracts your attention by giving you what you want – hence the label permission marketing (though permission is only one aspect of hearts-and-minds marketing). Think content in its assortment of forms (articles, blog posts, magazines or other publications, stories, tutorials, status updates, links, videos, audio files, white papers, newsletters, etc), events (education or training opportunities, public speaking engagement), community-building, and so on. Note that to remain sustainable, hearts-and-minds marketing should not be distributed in the eyeballs marketing form, e.g. an email newsletter to people who have not subscribed to it.
Hearts-and-minds is what interests you: You want to know what backpack to buy? Here’s a tutorial about how to pack for whatever trip you’re taking. You’re deciding whether to use email for your business? Here’s a white paper on trends in email marketing.
Hearts-and-minds marketing is a closed-loop system, speaking in terms of community, participation, engagement, systems and other social sustainability terminology.
What’s your take? What comparisons or analogies for sustainable marketing do you use or have seen?
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Image credit: CraftyGoat and angeladini2
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Peter – I like your differentiation between the eyeballs and hearts & minds.
Try this on for size:The average distance between the stem of the brain to the tip of the heart is only 9 inches. Assuming we all buy into the fact that the goal of marketing is to win the heart of our target audience, those become the longest and hardest 9 inches for any marketer.
Unfortunately the majority of marketers focus solely on the head by blasting your eyeballs and ears. They are hell bent on moving their target audience down the funnel, while neglecting the most valued asset they have – their current customers.
The most effective marketing you can do is with your current customers [Fact: It cost 5x's the amount of $ to get a new customer than it does to retain a current one]. I’m advocating a whole new way of looking at marketing through a concept called ‘lagniappe’. Lagniappe is creole word for ‘the gift’. It represents the little signature something extra thrown by the marketer ‘for good measure’ (what I call a ‘purple goldfish’. By doing so and providing added value – you vastly exceed customer expectations. You’ve now just given your best marketing asset something to talk, blog, tweet and post to Facebook about. Do it right like Southwest, Five Guys, TD Bank + Doubletree and you can promote retention, generate loyalty and create evangelists.
Best,
Stan
#PurpleGoldfishProject
@Stan: Thanks for sharing!
Peter – I love your analogies. I’ve been studying something similar, based on my gender expertise. What conventional/biz as usual has long been taking is a linear/eyeballs/left-brain (or typically more “masculine”) approach. What sustainability is, in its relationships and interconnections is much more like the hearts & mind.right-brain guided approach (typically considered more “feminine”). What I am working on now is how to make this point WITHOUT making it about gender (can’t get into telling corporations they need to be less masculine… sheesh!) – it’s a particular set of sensibilities that those who get/engage with sustainability tend to be better able to tap (see – Ray Anderson, for one), and that can likely be developed in a lot more people/business decision-makers. Business has long been tied to power/masculinity.. but now it needs to be tied to power/right-brain-guidedness. THANKS for writing this piece and starting the discussion.
@Andrea: I think your contrast between masculine and feminine business approaches works well without it having to be strictly about gender. But you’re right, people can be too sensitive about this kind of stuff. I look forward to reading your posts on the topic.
Peter,
Your analogies are right on. Although the concepts are solid, some people might be put off my the term “heart and mind – listening to your heart” regarding business because they think it’s too touchy-feely – which is a shame. I experienced this with the promotional and marketing work I did for Jack Mitchell’s bestselling book HUG YOUR CUSTOMERS (www.hugyourcustomers.com), especially in Great Britain and where the publisher explained the readers may be best described as “hugging with your hands by your sides”!
Somehow if they can get beyond the words they will find a valuable concept to consider.
Looking forward to reading more of your blog, which by the way I came upon via 3BLmedia.com CSRfeedupdate!
@Pamela: Anyone who knows me would never use the words touchy-feely to describe me, and I’m unlikely to promote doing business that way either. When I first met my American mother-in-law-to-be, I extended my arm for a handshake. She swatted my hand gently away and hugged me. I was terrified. So I certainly hear you on the challenges of cultural differences and crossover of ideas between realms.
There’s always a difference between what you say and what others will hear; I aim with my writing to make that difference as small as possible. I guess I should stop referring to 1980s Swedish pop band production (Roxette, “Listen to Your Heart”)…