B-to-B Marketing: Place is Now Irrelevant

Advertising is quickly changing, and chances are you are behind the eight ball. But, don’t worry, you are not alone—many brands still rely on old school philosophies when executing their media buys.

This could be due, in part, to the fact that the most sophisticated ad buyers are at the biggest agencies, which, in most cases, come with lofty monthly bills. However, there is no need to worry if you can’t afford the big shops—creating a solution is as simple as paying a little attention to the following statement:

Place is now irrelevant.

Where are you sitting right now (or standing)? How are you reading this column? On your cell phone? At a computer aboard an airplane? At your office? At your home? Chance are, you are reading this column because we led you into reading it. We likely created an ad campaign targeted at you, because, well, we thought you might like reading it.

Start there. Start with the fact that people are changing, as is their absorption of news. You, as a human, are in charge. It’s not me who made you read this or a journalist who made you learn about today’s news – I can’t, we can’t. I didn’t even make you click on the link into this story. You made that decision.

Boom. There’s the first staple of the idea that place is irrelevant. You can be anywhere in the world and receive your news, and, you will only read the news or columns or blogs or Facebook posts that you care about.

The good thing is, you care enough to make it this far into the column.

With preferences defined, now let’s talk place. Chances are, I targeted the exact area you found this story in. Whether a Facebook ad or an aggregated piece from a news site or because you are in my network and saw a Social post – I targeted you. And, I may have not even targeted you where you live. Perhaps, I targeted you while you are traveling – thinking your flight would be delayed or your meeting would be boring, thus you would have interest in diverting your attention.

With access to information, it doesn’t matter where you live – I can find you if you fit the demographics I am targeting. I can even wait until it fits into your schedule to read this post because, well, I pay per click.

So, you are behind in understanding the possibilities of the depth of advertising. No problem. Here’s what you need to eliminate place.

If you only want to grow your brand in Chicago, then focus the spend there, but focus it to a more defined audience. For argument’s sake, I targeted this audience to people who have an interest in marketing and who are above the age of 30. Simple. Then, I deployed my perfectly crafted message through the advertising channels – focusing on the future of advertising and the elimination of place. The thousands of impressions from my campaign were value ads, I really paid for the click. You can do the same.

The beauty of digital advertising is that all the data is there. The audiences are there and ready to soak up your stories. Make sure you have a good message, a good hook and a good keep.

When buying ads, perhaps it’s time to really focus your ads toward a core audience. Perhaps those are the ones who will give buy-in to the story you are telling. For now, digital is where I would put the majority of my advertising spend.