Keeping Up With Marketing Trends

I was on my way to the New Jersey Digital Marketing Conference recently. And it occurred to me that the way we keep up with the latest in marketing strategy and techniques has changed significantly.

A few years ago, it was all about in-person events, networking, and reading a few books.

Now - post-covid - much of our marketing education is digital. TikTok, webinars, social media and, yes, podcasts. And as AI becomes a bigger and bigger part of the conversation, where do you go to keep up with the trends?

On this episode, I run through the options, and share my own approach.

Resources:
Section - Online business courses (very AI and marketing focused)
Rutgers Mini-MBA Programs - Virtual and in-person courses
The Marketing Book Podcast

Smart people who I follow:
Rand Fishkin (SEO)
Eli Schwartz (SEO)
Ethan Mollick (AI)
Nicole Leffer (AI)
Andy Crestodina (Content)

Cocktail Recipe:
The Mexican Monk (but replace the tequila with mezcal!)

Transcript

I've been thinking a lot lately about how to stay ahead of the game, or at least up to date with marketing. Particularly as the changes continue to accelerate. Bad enough that we constantly have to pay attention to new channels, changing consumer behaviours, new privacy legislation. You know, marketing was fluid enough before AI came onto the scene, and now it can be quite bewildering to work out How you should be changing your workflows, what tools you should be evaluating, and frankly, who you should be listening to about all of this.

So the subject today is how do you keep up with marketing and where do you find the latest info?

[Intro Music]

I was heading to the New Jersey digital marketing conference last week. And it occurred to me how much the marketing education landscape has changed. Conferences are increasingly rare and, dare I say, decreasingly useful. Local networking groups are dwindling. And buying a marketing book can be a surefire way to be a year behind the trends.

So, what are we to do? As with most things, there are an abundance of choices, various platforms you can use. But it also brings a lot of noise, whether it's social media, webinars, video, in person. There are a lot of ways to keep up with marketing trends, but which ones make sense? So, so let's run through them.

I'll start with conferences, since that's what, uh, got me thinking along these lines. So here's the thing, right? They are expensive, um, particularly if they're not local to you. You could be spending a couple of grand. Just to attend the event, if you have to fly there, stay in hotels, et cetera, you know, unless your company is paying for it, they can be somewhat cost prohibitive.

Um, so if you are going to do one, um, I think there's a couple of things to bear in mind. The first is that it needs to be targeted. You know, my, my whole world is B2B marketing. So I need to find B2B conferences. Otherwise, I'm going to be sitting there and listening to people talk about how fantastic Coca Cola are, uh, branding, or, you know, how important influences are to your beauty products brand.

Um, And, you know, they may be talking about people with multi million dollar budgets, which just really isn't relevant to what I'm doing. Uh, another way to look at it is, you know, is it, do you want to know more about search? Is it, so you should find a search specific conference like, uh, Search Marketing Land.

Um, or maybe you want to know more about DemandGen, right? So this conference is specifically for that. Um, I find these general conferences, you know, they're glitzy, they have great marketing behind them, they have maybe some big name speakers, but it's tough to glean real good value information from them because they're just trying to cover so many things.

The other thing I look for is a conference with multiple tracks, so you can pick and choose what you're going to listen to at any particular time. Otherwise, you end up listening to a lot of filler presentations, if everybody's in the same room listening to the same things. And then set some goals. You know, what is it that you're trying to learn from this?

And Um, you know, are you also trying to talk to vendors and find out about the latest tools and latest technologies? Um, are you trying to meet new people? So define a networking approach for you, et cetera. I would love to be able to recommend specific conferences to you. I've been to a lot, um, over my career, but these events have changed so much since the pandemic.

Um, it's tough to call it without having been to any of them recently. So all I'll say is do your due diligence, really dig into the content and what you think you're going to get out of it. Now, a more accessible version of this are webinars, right? We have all signed up for them. I, I probably sign up for maybe two, two or three a week.

Um, so the first thing to look at. Obviously it's are they sponsored by a brand or worse, are they run by a company marketing team? And I say that having been somebody who has run webinars as part of a company marketing team. Um, so obviously what you're looking for is are they truly putting value out there or is it just going to be a product push and you know, all, all roads lead to you buying their, their product.

Um, Company ones aren't necessarily bad. You just got to look at who the presenters are. Have they brought in a quality guest presenter? Um, or is it really just, you know, product specialists and, uh, you know, their internal thought leaders, as it were, um, I have watched some very good, very informative webinars on topics that are relevant to me in the moment and generally I find the more niche focused they are, the more valuable, the more value you get out of them.

You know, they're not just being served up as sort of a generalist. Um, the other thing I do personally, which is good and bad, I, I very rarely attend one live. I get the recordings because that way you can fast forward through the first five minutes of housekeeping announcements and product intros, et cetera, et cetera.

And you can skip through to the real meat of it. The downside of that is. You know, how many of them do I come back and listen to afterwards? I'm, I'm not always good at that. Um, so then sort of the, the, the next part of this, the natural evolution is, is videos for Gen Z. The top three social platforms are TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

So video obviously is a part of the, the educational mix. Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff here. I would say, particularly on YouTube, um, good quality information, relatively easy to, Discover often it can send you down a rabbit hole, admittedly. And it's often given by people with little agenda. They are just out there trying to, it may be build an audience, but they are just trying to share their knowledge and their experience.

And there's less of sort of the product push on there. TikTok personally, I, I tend to find it's a lot of shallower marketing content. And it's a lot more focused on either Gen Z marketing or social media posting and tends to be more sort of tips and, and hacks, plus it can really mess up the rest of your algorithm.

So for me, when I'm on TikTok, I really want to see videos about whiskey, premier league football, British comedians. And if I start searching for marketing, that can really confuse the algorithm and, uh, and really ruin my downtime. Um, so I think YouTube is probably the place to go for that. Um, certainly for B2B marketing.

Um, There are also some groups or video courses or communities that are paid to view. So you would hope with those, the quality is going to be better. All I would say is make sure you've consumed some of their free material first to make sure that the videos are really going to be worthwhile. Uh, stepping back to let's say one of the more traditional ways of, of learning more about marketing is, is going to a physical or maybe a virtual course.

Again, I tend to like ones that are very focused. Uh, things like the mini MBAs at Rutgers University, where they'll do, uh, you know, specifically on digital marketing or specifically on AI for marketing. Um, and these courses tend to be run by practitioners, people who are out there doing it, rather than by teachers, so I would recommend that one.

I personally subscribe to a platform called Section. Uh, it was started by, uh, Scott Galloway from NYU. And it serves up, uh, two to three hour courses from actual practitioners. You can take them live, you can take them recorded, but they tend to be very application focused. I've used it a lot recently for AI courses because they're not so much telling you what AI is and what it can do, but they're actually walking you through very specific use cases of AI.

So, um, I would recommend that. I'll put a link to that. Alright, so I've, I've talked about a couple of things here where you can spend money. So let's go back to the, the free or the low cost options.

Alright, so some of those can actually require a decent amount of investment. So let's go back to talking about some free or low cost options. You know, you're listening to a podcast now. So obviously podcasts is a way that you can get that information. Timely, it's relevant. Um, generally I would avoid the big name shows, um, because they, they tend to have their own agendas.

Also you gotta be careful about guests doing the rounds and just telling you the same things on, on different shows. I find podcasts are really good for digging down into a specific subject. If you can find, you know, somebody who's interviewing, uh, you know, subject matter experts, I think it's really good.

Um, Discovering podcasts, I find really tough. Like how do you find those people? How do you find those niche subjects? But if you can't find them definitely well worth it. Um, and sort of a segue into the next one. There is a podcast out there called the marketing book podcast, where they interview the authors of the latest marketing releases.

Um, and I find that very useful for the next category, which is all about books. Now. Books may seem like an old fashioned way to get information. If you've seen any of my videos, I have a whole bookshelf behind me. I read a lot of books. Um, obviously there is a built in, uh, latency with books. Typically would have been written maybe six months before they're published.

So if you're looking to learn about something like AI, books may not be the obvious place there. A couple of bugbears I have about Most business books I'm convinced should be about a hundred pages or less. But obviously editors tell the authors, Oh, it's got to be 200, 250 pages to be taken seriously. So there's generally a lot of fluff in them.

I would also say most business authors really only have one idea. So their first book is, is often their best book. And then after that, it either becomes derivative or they're sort of desperately searching for it. So I do really like reading. It is tough to find the right books that are worth the time investment.

Um, I have a couple of LinkedIn folks that I follow who share their recommendations and I do the same thing. So keep an eye on, on my LinkedIn feed every so often I'll post a review. Or a recommendation of one I find worthwhile. Last one I recommended, ironically, after my last comment, is um, called Cointelligence by Ethan Mollick, and it is about how to work with AI.

Which is surprisingly relevant, um, because it was obviously written probably six months ago, maybe a little more now. But because he's talking about um, How you should work with AI rather than the ins and outs of AI. It is still very relevant. Uh, a couple more things, networking groups. Um, so for me, these were great.

Um, a while back, I spent a lot of time with, with groups like the business marketing association, American marketing association. Um, honestly, I think they're really tough now to find good in person ones. A lot of them either ran out of steam or was followed up by, you know, Bigger groups, um, MANG, the marketing executive network group was, was another good one.

Um, if you can find, uh, uh, an in person one, have at it, definitely check out your local BMA group and see what they're doing. Online ones, personally, I find a tough to get much out of. Um, there are folks like Matt Hines, who does some good online sessions. Communities like exit five can be good as well.

Although I think you've Beware of echo chambers there. But, um, again, it's, it's a case of really digging into what you want to hear about and finding the right people and then, you know, social media. You might wonder why I didn't bring it up at the beginning because really, you know, we're all drinking from that fire hose.

But I think in this context of learning and keeping ahead of things, I look at social media as being important. Not so much the place to learn, but the place to identify the trends and find the right people to pay attention to. A lot of the stuff you see posted on social media is really the same, you know, intro info or people selling their services, courses, you know, sound bites, um, hacks and, and, and hooks.

Uh, but what I. Do like social media for is finding the true experts who, who are sharing valuable info. So for me, that's people like Rand Fishkin or Eli Schwartz for SEO. Um, Ethan Mollick, Nicole Leffer for AI. I like Andy Crestedina for, for websites and content. But the, the key is go looking for the true experts, pay attention for them and ignore the dross.

So I guess what, what I've really come to realize is that the best way to keep up with what's happening and keep your skills up to date is to find your people. Uh, maybe it's sort of build your tribe to tap into the Seth Godin idea. Identify the two or three areas of marketing you really want to stay on top of, search social media to find, you know, two or three people who are posting smart, relevant stuff on that topic and then go where they are.

You know, whether that's a book or a seminar or a community. And then the other thing is keep that tribe current. I, you know, I found some folks that are very good in the short term, but over the longer term they either lose steam, maybe they shift their focus, maybe I've shifted my focus. Um, so be willing to, to cut and replace.

I will link in the show notes to some of my current favorites, but this really is a choose your own adventure. Find the people that are, that make sense to you, that are presenting in the formats that you like, and seem to know what they're talking about. Um, and by doing that, I hope wherever you end up, I hope you'll be a little smarter for it.

Now, I don't have a guest this week, so I'll offer up my own drink of the week.

Now, since I don't have a guest this week, I'll offer up my own drink of the week. Now, I did feature this in my email newsletter a few weeks ago. Um, so, if you get the newsletter, I apologize for repetition. If you don't get the newsletter, and you want to hear more of my, my musings and meanderings, please sign up on Substack.

It's also called The Marketing Mix. But anyway, this drink I like, um, I really like it as the weather gets hotter. It's called a Smokey Monk which is a variation on, uh, a more standard, uh, Cocktail called the Mexican Monk. So it's mezcal, yellow chartreuse, uh, pineapple juice and, and lime juice and I just really like it because it has sort of, it's, it's this refreshing pineapple flavor, but just like a little bit of smoke from, from the mezcal.

So, um, I would recommend that if you're looking for something refreshing to, to kick off the weekend. And I guess on the subject of online learning, um, there are some great mixologists on TikTok as well. That's the other part of my feed beyond the whiskey and, and the football, um, and the British comedians.

Uh, so check out the high proof preacher, uh, for one, if you want to see some, some interesting cocktails. Uh, so that's it for this week, as always, thank you for listening.