A New Mindset
We are going to challenge a mindset that started nearly 600 years ago.
It’s a mindset that has been responsible for the billion-dollar brands we all know today.
But it’s also a mindset that is stunting small and medium-sized businesses everywhere.
And it’s probably stunting your business as well.
Historical Context
This mindset started with Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press nearly 600 years ago.
Recreated Gutenberg press at the International Printing Museum, Carson, California.
Some label it as the greatest invention of all time.
It fuelled the Renaissance and the Reformation, followed by the Age of Enlightenment and the sharing of Scientific Knowledge.
This was all made possible by the mass production of printed materials like books and pamphlets.
But it also opened the door to mass advertising.
When newspapers arrived and production costs became affordable, it was the ideal medium to get marketing messages in front of the masses.
If you had enough money to get in front of the masses, you could mass-produce commodities and be successful.
This fuelled the growth of the mass market.
This mass media mindset continued into radio and television, where the big brands also had all the prime spots.
By putting marketing messages in front of masses of people multiple times, brands were able to create a subconscious reaction when we needed what they had to sell.
The result was the well-known brands we have today.
- Feel like a cola?
- Or a burger?
- Or fried chicken?
Who do you think of?
This worked with traditional mass media.
Transition To The Digital Age
But how well does this translate to your business in the digital age?
Most businesses could not afford traditional mass media.
With the invention of the ‘Free’ model, we thought the playing fields were even.
Unfortunately, big media houses still have the lion’s share of our attention.
While the odd Social Media post goes viral, most content gets very little traction.
The average YouTube video gets 5 new views a day.
Despite 5 billion YouTube plays a day, there are a huge number of videos that get less than a single view each day.
Only a small amount gets millions of views.
Source: Wikipedia
This diagram, called the long tail, shows the few on the left with millions of views.
As we move to the right, the number of videos increases and the number of views decreases until we are left with virtually nothing.
This behaviour is common across all digital channels.
We either need to create something remarkable or build a community that’s big enough to sustain us. If we could do both, even better.
Comparison With Traditional Media
With traditional Mass Media, we all knew that we couldn’t afford to reach millions, so we didn’t even try.
With the promise of “Free”, driven by the Internet, millions believe that they can go viral and get millions of views.
So, they pump as much content into the world, as often as possible, hoping to reach millions.
This mass media mindset is responsible for so much low-quality content.
Millions are hoping to be the next big influencer with millions of fans.
Businesses are hoping for the same.
But hope is not a strategy.
Most content hardly gets any views, as shown in the long tail.
If you have tried this on your own as a cricket-related business, you know what I mean.
Your core business isn’t publishing.
So, to publish daily, either your content suffers, your business operations suffer, or both.
It’s no wonder businesses who try to use their own Social Media channels or websites fail.
The Change in Consumer Behaviour
There is another reason why the mass media mindset doesn’t work as well as it used to.
This has even affected the big brands.
Except for certain events, people don’t all consume the same content at the same time.
When there were only a few television stations, masses tuned into the same shows at the same time.
And masses read the same newspapers every day.
Today, it’s more personal.
We are all on our smartphones, tablets or laptops consuming different things at any point in time, even in the same household.
As technology improves and understands us even better, it will become even more personal.
This has enabled a new type of community to emerge – a virtual one, where people with a common interest congregate.
To build these communities the mass media mindset of blasting something out that everyone will see at the same time will not succeed.
We have to attract like-minded individuals and get them to engage and join the conversation.
Then you can make them offers aligned to their interests.
This is in stark contrast to the mass media mindset, which only works if you have a big budget and commodity items.
What’s next?
We’ve shown how the mass media mindset only works if you have a big budget and can afford to reach millions of people.
It works because the market for a commodity item is everybody.
But this probably won’t work for you.
As a cricket-related business, your target market isn’t everybody.
And it’s difficult to find a cricket audience among the masses.
You need ways to get a cricket audience to find you.
In all our years, we only found three ways to be found online.
But we will cover that later.
We first need to understand the numbers and how they work.