There is a huge generation gap between young marketers and old
\nmarketers — like me.<\/p>\n
As I see it, many young marketers are overly fond of whatever is
\nhip and trendy at the moment – e.g., Instagram, Google +,
\ninfographics, Foursquare, memes.<\/p>\n
Many older marketers prefer the tried, true, and tested methods:
\ne-mail marketing, white papers, landing pages, direct mail, ads.<\/p>\n
Why do young marketers have such a strong preference for the
\nlatest flavor of the month?<\/p>\n
I can think of a few reasons:<\/p>\n
1-They want to appear “in the know” to their friends,
\ncolleagues, and clients.<\/p>\n
2-People are always attracted to things that are new.<\/p>\n
3-For old-school marketing methods such as direct mail, there is
\na huge body of tested experience which young marketers do not
\nknow about … so they are at a disadvantage.<\/p>\n
4-Some clients are mesmerized by the latest fads, and look for
\nconsultants who are proficient in those methods.<\/p>\n
5-Many marketers find refuge in marketing for which sales ROI
\ncannot be measured, because it masks the fact that they don’t
\nknow how to sell.<\/p>\n
6-It’s easier and takes less skill to create a blog post or a
\nTweet than it does to write a long-copy landing page whose sales
\ncan be measured to the dollar.<\/p>\n
I often say I was born at the wrong time, for the following
\nreason….<\/p>\n
When I was young and worked in marketing for large corporations,
\nthe senior marketers were revered while it was assumed that us
\n“kids” knew nothing and would take many years to train.<\/p>\n
Now that I am older, I live in a youth-oriented society where
\nyoung people are valued for their superior grasp of technology,
\nwhile folks in my 50+ age group can’t get a job because their
\nskills are thought to be obsolete and their thinking out of step
\nwith the times.<\/p>\n
The fact is that today’s youth does not respect the wisdom of
\ntheir elders – either in business or in life – and does not seek
\nto learn from them.<\/p>\n
A case in point is EM, one of my early mentors, who was
\nconsidered one of the great copywriters of the 20th century.<\/p>\n
EM and I both wrote direct mail copy for Publisher X. At the
\ntime, I had about 7 years experience, and EM had more than 40.<\/p>\n
The marketing managers at Publisher X – who were all in their
\n20s and 30s – loved what I wrote. And I think they viewed me as
\na contemporary. But they tore EM’s copy to shreds.<\/p>\n
Here they were, able to access decades of tested direct mail
\nknowledge from a guy who wrote some of the most famous classic
\nDM packages of all time …<\/p>\n
… and they had no interest in what he thought or had to say. He
\nlamented to me that X routinely ignored his advice and
\nsuggestions.<\/p>\n
I close with this bit of wisdom from my favorite comedienne,
\nLouis CK:<\/p>\n
“Life is an education, and if you’re older, you’re smarter. If
\nyou are in an argument with somebody and they are older than
\nyou, you should listen to them.<\/p>\n
“It doesn’t mean they’re right. It means that even if they’re
\nwrong, their wrongness is rooted in more information than you
\nhave.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There is a huge generation gap between young marketers and old marketers — like me. As I see it, many young marketers are overly fond of whatever is hip and trendy at the moment – e.g., Instagram, Google +, infographics, Foursquare, memes. Many older marketers prefer the tried, true, and tested methods: e-mail marketing, white […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":918,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916\/revisions\/918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}