How To Survive The Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Rebellion

“The fact is, we cannot love a logo, a jingle, or a piece of branded content. But we can love a person.” ― Mark Schaefer, Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins

Customers are your new marketing department––that’s the main takeaway of Marketing Rebellion, a 290-page book acting as a wake-up call for new-age marketers. Released in February 2019, Schaefer (a globally-recognised keynote speaker, marketing strategy consultant, lecturer, and author) released a manifesto, pleading marketeers today to think differently. His deeply researched and hugely trend-focused work will cause you to rethink much of what you thought you knew about marketing, especially in an era increasingly influenced by tech, but also traditional high-reach media.

Schaefer goes into detail about how all of what you previously knew about marketing is now relegated to one-third of what is effective, the other two-thirds now entirely out of our control by way of customer-shared content, reviews and word of mouth. He advocates, bluntly and assuredly, that in this era of customer control, marketing is all about creating experiences that will be shared by customers, whereas tech should be used to help make the customer experience seamless and efficient, not for overloading them with targeted messages to buy more stuff.

His approach demands a cultural shift, no longer fitting neatly into existing marketing strategies and actually running counter to many agency models. It demands a different skill set, an open mind, and sees marketing as everyone’s job.

Mark’s main takeaways:

Sales funnels are gone!

Engagement doesn’t matter – our customers are the marketing department. Connection with customers is of utmost importance as they are today’s marketeers.

Customers are in control

Companies can now only be built through human impressions. We buy from who we like, know and trust.
Human-driven marketing reviews make the world go round, meaning that two-thirds of marketing is not marketing. Instead, we must influence the people to do our marketing.

Rethink the role of established marketing

Like marketing, tech is also driving huge change through experimenting. Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon, focuses on what’s not being disrupted, and what’s not going to change in the next ten years; low prices, quick delivery, and vast selection. This is what people will always want. Make tech to serve these needs.

The most human company will win

Customer satisfaction is the top priority. Maintain a standard of constant human truth; serve customers first, and be courageous leaders and protectors of the brand. There are five human truths: 1. People want to feel loved. 2. People want to belong. 3. People want to protect self-interest. 4. People want to find meaning. 5. People want to be respected. Remember those every time you deal with a customer.

Brands must have an emotional attachment

We can’t love a brand, but we can love a person. Customers want to see the people behind the brand and create a brand relationship. People trust people, so it’s imperative that you provide true value to the person’s brand; employees tell the stories of the workplace. Take care of customers who love the brand and that will look after consumer-generated marketing.

Mark’s final thought

“Marketing Rebellion is at the forefront of the fight against the most recent marketing standards, calling into question many popular digital and social media marketing beliefs,” Mark Feehan says. “The book’s author, Mark Schaefer, has a distinct approach that is extremely beneficial to marketers and business owners. This book serves as a wake-up call for companies to BE MORE HUMAN.

“This book has given me the freedom to think about marketing in a new, but old, way; to reject what should be and create strategies that I can ethically believe in and be proud of. Yes, I do believe the traditional sales funnel is dead; can anyone really track the customer journey? I hope you will challenge me on this after reading this book. Overall, this book has the potential to boost your company’s competitiveness by resolving issues you weren’t even aware of. What Schaefer has provided in this book is among the best I’ve seen so far. A must-read, in my opinion!”

What Schaefer with Marketing Rebellion is trying to get across is that brands are, in essence, human. Today, consumers want so much more out of brands; something more than just a product or service. Consumers now want to engage with a brand, and they expect a brand to share its values and be real. In delivering this message, Shaefer adds a fifth “P” to the traditional marketing matrix of product, promotion, price, and place … Purpose. Consumers choose a particular brand’s products or services based on the stories that these brands tell and the values that they stand for, in other words, their purpose.

What we’re currently working on:

We give back; we’ve partnered with tree-planting and forest-regeneration charity Hometree, employ locally and give back to the community (just recently, we’ve commissioned Waterford Walls and Street Art Ink to paint murals on our Waterford City buildings for those living in the area to enjoy) and we provide pro bono work to charities.

Following this, we just hired a new Head of People, Katy Kiely to help us improve our team culture and allow us to solely focus on our client experience. It’s only going to go up from here!

We at Fitzgerald Power have spent thirty years offering creative solutions to a diverse range of clients across Ireland, and the UK, and we’re pretty proud of what we’ve helped our clients to achieve. We enable and empower businesses to reach any and every goal. Whatever the job, we don’t offer anything less than the best. We work across a range of sectors, including pharmacy, food & beverage, SME and retail. Please get in touch today if you would like to speak to any of our experts.

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