About
This blog is intended to be a combination of my thoughts, ideas and observations on the changes that marketing and business in general is undergoing (plus items of interest to me - and I hope to you as well - when I find them). My hope is that you will participate in the conversation - disagree, comment, add your thoughts, point out other things of interest, and add a good story or two.
But I know you’re asking….What is Disruptive Marketing™?
Business and markets are constantly being disrupted - there are new technologies, new business models, new markets and new competition. If you haven’t woken up to some news that seriously threatened the way you do business today, you will soon. There are very few businesses that can avoid this, and be completely secure for long periods of time. If you’re still reading, then I suppose I don’t need to convince you that this will happen faster and faster.
The good news is that nearly every business can take advantage of this fact.
Some will create disruption in their market, sometimes with technology, sometimes with marketing, sometimes with a variety of other methods. They will drive their competition crazy and take a leadership position.
Others might face disruption, and find ways to outflank it or out-do it.
Whatever position you find yourself and your business in, (this may be overstated, but still true…) business as usual will not work. You must create new, innovative and - yes - disruptive ideas to make sure that your business is not the one left behind when the proverbial rug that is your market is pulled out from under you. Are you ready?
I’ve worked with companies on both sides of this situation, and some that defy categorization. I’ve launched disruptive products and made sure that well-established products get out ahead of disruptive threats. I’d like to take some credit for contributing to the incredibly inventive products themselves, but my contribution has been in marketing, creating markets, changing and re-defining markets, and outflanking shifting markets.
Disruption isn’t all about the external market, however. It’s also about how businesses do business. Changing times, changing demographics, changing technologies, changing society and, well, change, require new ways of doing business. And by doing business differently the way you face your customers and the market also changes.
Marketing (all aspects, from the most strategic marketing all the way to on-the-ground selling) is undergoing such a disruption now. The rise of collaborative and community development technologies is just beginning to change the ways businesses interact with customers, whether consumers or other businesses. It’s far from certain how this will happen, how it will develop, what will be useful and what will be wasteful, how all of it will be measured, and what marketing will look like in the next decade. I can say with certainly only that it will change, and whatever it is will be something that most of us can’t imagine today.
Having both created and capitalized on many business disruptions in my career, I am now working to do the very same in marketing.
If you share my passion for creating change, join in…
