Something interesting happened this past week which has further solidified my opinion on this matter. We had written in the past about how Amy had launched her wedding cake design business asa boston and has been working hard at building momentum. I have been working with Amy on this business, more as a business advisor (I am not one for baking or culinary design, although I appreciate both).

Now on to the interesting part. An acquaintance in our community mentioned that they had found a print advertisement for asa boston in The Knot Boston magazine. At first he did not realize that it was Amy’s ad. He had reviewed the ad and then went to the website and then it hit him – it was the same Amy that he knew from Cape Cod! Prior to seeing the ad and reviewing the website he and his wife did not realize Amy owned and operated the wedding cake design business.

Old or New?

So back to our original question – which is better – old or new marketing? Neither. You should use both – a combination of the two approaches. There are elements of both old and new which when combined can create an optimum marketing approach.

Elements of old and new marketing can effectively blend and correlate (in other words create meaningful associations) various aspects within the individual’s mind. Consider the opening example. The individual saw the ad in a magazine which prompted a visit to the website, which led to a conversation with his wife, which ultimately led to Amy being directly contacted. If either the outbound marketing (the print ad) or inbound (website) would have been missing the end result may not have occurred.

The Three Pronged Marketing Approach

This experience reminded me of the Cape Cod Branding Marketing Plan that I originally presented for my final project in business school. The basic approach is summarized in the diagram below.

As shown there are three sources of anticipated revenue from marketing – print media, electronic media, and word of mouth. Print media includes magazines and other print advertising relevant to your industry. Electronic media is meant to encompass electronic advertising accomplished on the Internet such as social media, search engines, and electronic marketplaces. Finally word of mouth reflects an individual who uses your product or service, had a great experience, and passes it along to their friends.

It is my opinion that word of mouth is the most powerful. Personally I hold recommendations from friends and other like-minded individuals in very high regard. This is one reason why I view electronic media as the second most powerful prong of this approach. In many instances, such as the use of social media, electronic media is a tool to pass along word of mouth but  at a much faster rate. Add to the fact that electronic media requires very little investment in terms of money or time (for either advertiser or potential buyer) when compared to print media and you have one powerful medium. The ever increasing use of electronic media is one reason why viral marketing is receiving increasing attention in recent years.

The value of print media is where my opinion drifts from others. I have been noticing an increasing trend of a general devaluing of print media, and some would argue that it no longer has value. I am not arguing that print media has not dropped in overall value, my opinion is that it has simply dropped due to the emerging popularity of electronic media. Print media is not being replaced by electronic media, it must now share the space with electronic media.

Marketing Harmony

With the Three Pronged Marketing approach each prong augments one another and provides a reinforced, complete picture through correlated information. Returning to the asa boston example, the individual randomly located Amy’s advertisement within The Knot, which prompted a visit to the website, which led to discussions with his wife and Amy being contacted.

If one of these elements were missing, the message may not have been correlated and therefore the end result may have been missed. Since each element was present, they all worked together to form a picture to the potential buyer. This is the main benefit of the Three Pronged Marketing approach.

In closing I will say that there is no single recipe for success here. The right amount of marketing in each instance will vary from individual to individual and from business to business. If money were no object I would attack all three (print, electronic, and word of mouth) at once, equally. This would provide for maximum exposure.

However, as is the case with many entrepreneurs and small business owners, money is an object, especially when first starting out. In this instance my recommendation is to focus on word of mouth, place products in the right individual’s hands and once they are satisfied customers, they will evangelize (advertise) for you. In parallel I recommend electronic media – you can begin here with no money whatsoever, and it can be an effective way to get the word out. Finally, as funding becomes available, allocate money to print advertising.

Old vs. new marketing is not an either/or question, but rather how to best combine elements of each based on your unique situation and needs!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

This is where luck comes in. But one’s luck certainly increases with skill. Knowledge, and the subsequent application of gained knowledge is power – and therefore educating oneself on viral marketing techniques may increase the likelihood of producing a viral hit, or at a bare minimum, recognizing a viral hit in the making. Increased knowledge increases the likelihood that one may hit the right timing and eventually skill, timing, and luck are all present and the stars are aligned.

But there are techniques for creating a viral hit which may be used to increase the likelihood of doing so. At a minimum one must understand the system and the processes the system uses. This is the subject of Media Virus! by Douglas Rushkoff.

Spreading The Virus
A virus injects itself into a cell and instructs the host cell – “spread me.” If the virus is executed properly the process continues over and over again until many, a majority, or even all the cells are infected with the virus. So it goes with a media virus.

A message originates from an individual or organization. It may die off at the first recipient – if indeed it does reach the intended recipient. It may spread to more individuals, it may spread to many individuals. It may spread to all individuals. One should be so lucky!

Viral marketing has been around since at least 1994 when Media Virus! was first published. So why the sudden interest in viral marketing? The Internet is coming into it’s own.

Sure the Internet has been around for some time – initially developed by The Rand Corporation in the late 1960’s for defense applications – however the masses are just now beginning to embrace this medium. And it isn’t even close to reaching it’s full potential. Something interesting I had learned when first starting my business – individuals and small businesses are slow, slow to move and slow to change. Surely this is not true of all individuals and small business, but certainly a large number. People stick with what they are comfortable with and therefore resist change.

The masses are becoming comfortable with the Internet. Research, reading, social networking, shopping – you name it. This comfort and subsequent embrace of the Internet is increasing the rate at which information is spread, and in my opinion this rate of information transfer only stands to increase exponentially over time.

This is a ripe environment for a virus to flourish.

Embracing Chaos
One of the most fascinating aspects of Media Virus! is the unique combination of systems thinking, chaos theory, and how the mass media works. Prior to reading this book I thought I had a reasonable understanding of how the media worked, I was mistaken.

According to Rushkoff the media is a living organism which continually evolves over time. Complex systems theory states that a system operates optimally when operating at the edge of chaos. The trade-off is that optimal operation is often unpredictable. As with any living organism it is impossible to predict with perfect accuracy the behavior of the organism (in this case the media), thus is impossible to launch a hit virus consistently over time. What can be predicted is the nature of the chaos and the need for feedback and iteration.

Feedback is simply a means of responding to received information. For example, initial forms of television did not possess information feedback  – a viewer was static in their viewing of a television show and did not have a means to respond to the producers of the show, or at least if said feedback was present – it was rudimentary, say in the form of snail mail. Fast forward years later and viewers of a television show can vote instantly on content through such means as phone calls, texting, and even the Internet.

The Internet is the ultimate form of feedback. If a news agency or independent blogger reports a story that is relevant to the largest possible amount of people and that is different from the competition – they can end up on the front page of Digg or some similar website which continually pushes the awareness of stories higher and higher. Of course, like it may be viewed on Digg – a story can lose momentum just as quickly – just like a real virus. This is instant feedback.

The other component that must be present is iteration. This is simply a process continually repeated over time. Wash, rinse, repeat – that is iteration. Original television possessed iteration – producers would continue to churn out the same material over time – this worked because feedback mechanisms were limited. However, given the fast feedback of the Internet, future iterations can be greatly improved in amazingly short amounts of time. This is true process improvement.

Such systems (for example the media) are chaotic in that they are difficult to predict as a result of their rapid evolution. Feedback and iteration make them chaotic, which in turn reduces predictability over time, yet makes them optimal for their stated function – the spread of information.

Playing The Media
Media Virus! contains many examples of individuals learning the system and manipulating it to their advantage. For the reasons discussed above past performance is not a predictor of future success, however some have come incredibly close to doing so. Sometimes this was unintentional (at least initially), but may also be intentional. Another fascinating aspect is that I noticed that the individuals who had become aware of the working of the media (and similar chaotic systems) were not particularly well funded. They were grassroots organizations – therefore there did not appear to be a correlation between money and results.

There are some interesting examples of individuals and organizations playing the media – essentially trapping them into reacting the way in which they predicted. Sometimes – due to the nature of feedback and iteration – the results were completely unexpected – a smashing success or a fizzling dud. Again, this is where the luck part comes into play.

There were several events that the author used as an example which occurred during the past 15 years which were viral hits – many of which I had no idea of at the time. Actually, I was unaware until after reading the book!

Striking Contradictions
One example of this sort of manipulation of the media was the creation of the term “smart drugs.” This phrase was purposeful in design. Simple and memorable due to it’s contradictory nature.

Society dictates that -  Smart is good. Drugs are bad. So how can there be such a thing as smart drugs?

Even if you don’t buy in to the whole smart drugs way of thinking the simple yet strikingly contradictory nature of the phrase would likely make an individual pause and take notice. You might consider the statement. The seed has been planted. Next you may debate the subject, argue with the originator. Discuss it with your friends.

To the originator of a media virus, all press is good press.

Lessons Learned
I had taken away quite a bit from this book. As I mentioned the book was originally published in 1994 – Douglas Rushkoff was well ahead of his time! In my opinion much of the thinking continues to be ahead of it’s time, although definitely relevant.

I feel that I have walked away from this book with a much better understanding of how the media works and how viral messages originate and are passed along. At a minimum, it has increased my scrutiny of received messages. As I discussed earlier, it is near impossible to consistently orchestrate viral marketing campaigns over time – consider why there are so many one hit wonders! However, the knowledge I have received from this book increases my understanding of what it would take to do so, and how to increase my chances. At a minimum I am much better prepared to recognize a viral marketing message in the making!

Who Should Read This Book?
Anyone with an interest in systems thinking, viral marketing, and chaos theory. Given my background in systems engineering and business I really enjoyed this book as it appealed to both aspects. However, one need not possess this background to take away some solid information. Although this book was written 15 years ago – the information continues to be relevant, and in my opinion will be for some time to come.

Viral marketing is a complex process – continuous feedback and iteration are required!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding

The following items are worth noting concerning traffic sources for June when compared to previous months:

1. More traffic sources
2. Traffic sources are more diverse

For more on the concept of viral mapping and viral marketing, refer to my article “Viral Mapping”. For the May 2009 viral map, refer to “Viral Map Update”.

CCBbuzz Viral Map
The updated CCBbuzz viral map below as Figure 1.

Figure 1. CCBbuzz Viral Map

As a refresher, the viral map is a representation of traffic flow to and from the website. In addition to modifying the actual traffic sources, I had streamlined the diagram a bit. Instead of showing each unique traffic source, I have just depicted categories, and will describe the sources in each section. The reason for this is that there are simply too many sources to show on the diagram in a meaningful way. A good problem to have! Each section of this article will address a different category starting from the top and moving clockwise.

Blogs
For the Blogs category we have maintained the same traffic sources when compared to the previous month and have added a couple more. Here is the list of blogs who had provided CCBbuzz with visitors:

1. Cofebuz
2. StartupHustle
3. The Church Of Jesus Christ
4. Web Ink Now
5. Synchronicity

Cofebuz and The Church of Jesus Christ were new during June, when compared to the May traffic sources. We have received occasional traffic from Cofebuz from time-to-time, however CCBbuzz was featured in an articled called “The Best Unknown Websites” which had provided us with a steady stream of traffic throughout the remainder of the month. The Church of Jesus Christ blog had linked back to one of our technical articles which provided us with some new readers from that site. Compared to the previous month, no blog sources have dropped off June’s viral map.

Direct Entry
These our individuals who visit our site by directly entering our web address into their web browser. For the time being, I will include our Subscribers into this category.

Internal
Internal traffic from the main Cape Cod Branding website.

Miscellaneous
Here are a few other sites that we receive traffic from that do not neatly fit into previously defined categories:

1. Alphainventions
2. Chatii
3. Google Translator
4. The Wedding Times
5. WordPress.org

A couple have dropped off the list when compared to last month to include Pragmatic Marketing and Rocklin High School – however we have gained a few more traffic sources to include Chatii, Google Translator, and The Wedding Times. Google Translator is interesting in that this site implies that we are gaining awareness form non-English speaking readers. Our notice from The Wedding Times was a result of Amy’s article announcing her business,  “asa boston Wedding Cake Design”. The benefit of writing about different things is that you get noticed by different people – expanding your audience and your horizons!

Search Engines
We seem to be gaining increased awareness from the search engines. In addition to the the normal Google searches we receive, a couple more have been added during the month of June:

1. AOL Search
2. Dogpile

Apparently SEO is paying off – my guess is that as we are around longer and implement more SEO, it will continue to expand awareness.

Social Media
Here are the sources of our social media web traffic:

1. Digg
2. Facebook
3. Technorati
4. Twitter

A couple had dropped off the list from last month to included Linkedin and Sphere – however Digg was added to the list as we had received some traffic during June from that site.

As June was our highest month for web traffic by far, this is also reflected by a wider variety of web traffic sources. As with most anything else diversity in web traffic is desirable as it lessens your risk over time, should one or more of your sources suddenly vanish.

Diversity in web traffic sources greatly reduces your risk!

-John R. Sedivy of Cape Cod Branding