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What is Modern Marketing?

I have been working in marketing for 20 years, and over that time I have seen a shift in the way that marketing and communications is approached over that time. This shift is a movement towards authenticity, community building and breaking the one-size fits all myth. 

This is a movement to modern marketing. 

Modern marketing moves away from the outdated idea that there’s only one right way to create a marketing strategy or deliver a campaign. Today, you have so many options to engage your audience, build connections, tell your story, and ultimately convert this audience into customers.

The best strategy for your business is going to depend on: 

  • Your audience – who you want this to be and  how you want to grow it.
  • Your business goals and purpose.

There’s No One-Size-Fits-All Strategy

Your marketing strategy depends entirely on who you want to reach.

Different audiences consume different media, so knowing your audience is what will drive a strategy that is right for you and your business. 

What this means is, you can’t say that every business needs to be on all social media platforms, or every business needs to be pumping it across Linkedin. Where you need to be is all dependent on who you want to reach.

There is no one size fits all. The true meaning of modern marketing is being able to confidently say “My audience is here and so I  am going to focus on these channels”.

That means also being able to confidently say “I won’t be able to reach my ideal audience if I use this channel, so it is ok for me to step away from that space.” 

Modern marketing is about having that confidence: I know my audience and I know how to reach them. 

It really concerns me when I see people online saying things like “download my bulletproof plan to boost your audience, engagement, sales etc.” Each target audience is different; there is no way that you can reach a range of different audiences with one single approach. 

There is no single approach that will be successful for every product, service and target audience. It’s just not possible to have a one-size fits all approach that is successful. 

Authenticity Over ‘Bro-Marketing’

Modern marketing is all about the way that we talk to our audience. There can be a perception that marketing, advertising or PR is sneaky, that it’s designed to trick someone into spending money on something that they don’t really need. I remember one of my business professors saying, “Marketing is making people know they need something before they know it themselves.”

There has been a shift away from this idea, and there really needs to be a continuing move towards talking to our customers or potential customers with respect in a truthful way.

Old-fashioned “bro-marketing” is the approach that looks to oversell, over promise, try and convince you that you need something that maybe you don’t. Modern marketing is not that – instead it is acknowledging that the product or service that you have to offer is genuinely valuable to a specific group of people or businesses. Not every person, not every business. And that’s ok

Talk to your audience authentically and genuinely, without misleading or misinforming them just to make a sale. Your marketing should be honest, trustworthy, and aligned with your business purpose.

Telling Your Story with Confidence

Being able to communicate sincerely and persuasively in a short amount of time is a gift. That’s what great marketing does—when you are telling a story that you believe in, that resonates with people it builds trust, and creates connections.

Building a narrative has become a critical part of engaging with your audience. There was a time when marketing was all about the 4 P’s – I am sure you have heard about these – product, placement, promotion and price. The integration of these often lead to strong pricing offers, or promotional selling points such as the % off idea, then using the right channel to promote a product. This idea was taught for a long time and used really well for a long time.

However we have moved past the idea of the 4 P’s – this idea that the product features and the price is all we need to really sell. You could also say that this links back to this idea of “bro-marketing” and that sleazy sales approach – that if we just undercut the price enough or offer the most appealing promotion that we will drive sales.

This is truly not the case any longer. The key to really successful marketing now is storytelling. And not fabricating a story that isn’t real, but tapping into exactly what your brand stands for, why it stands for that, and the connection that you have with your ideal audience as a result. 

Sometimes this is the founder’s story, sometimes it ladders up to overall brand values. Sometimes it is creating the right story for your audience based on understanding their journey and interactions with you as a brand. 

Building that emotional connection with your audience through storytelling is what is going to create the right type of engagement with your ideal client. It’s also telling that story truthfully to build that connection and engagement. 

Final Thoughts

The main takeaway I want to leave you with today is this: modern marketing breaks the myth that there’s a one-size-fits-all approach. It rejects the idea that marketing needs to be sneaky to be successful, and it tells a story with sincerity.

Even businesses in the same industry, selling the same product, won’t necessarily need the same marketing strategy to stay competitive. The key is understanding what sets you apart and how to align your strategy with that differentiation.