How to Find the Best Medium for Your Message - with Matt Bailey

Summary

In this engaging talk, marketing expert Matt Bailey explores the relevance of Marshall McLuhan's phrase 'the medium is the message' in today's fast-paced digital world. Speaking from the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Matt emphasizes the importance of selecting the right communication medium to ensure that your message is effectively received and interpreted by your audience. He highlights that different platforms—whether YouTube, Twitter, or blogging—offer varied strengths in conveying messages, and encourages marketers to keenly assess which medium aligns best with their intended message. This involves understanding the target audience, the nature of the message, and the resources available, ensuring that the selected medium aptly supports the core message while other channels complement it naturally.

Highlights

• The internet introduced a multitude of mediums, diversifying online marketing. 🌐
• The same message can be interpreted differently depending on the medium used. 📡
• Choosing the right medium for your message is crucial for effective marketing. 🎯
• YouTube, blog posts, and Twitter serve different purposes in message dissemination. 🖥️
• Understanding your message and resources helps focus on the primary medium. 🔍

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the phrase 'the medium is the message' is crucial for modern marketing! 📢
• Different mediums can significantly alter the reception and interpretation of your message. 💬
• Assessment of the right platform for your message ensures effective communication. 📲
• Not all mediums serve the same purpose; some are primary while others are complementary. 🔗
• Effective medium use requires evaluating your message and audience first. 🧩

Overview

Marketing in the digital age is not just about the message but also the medium through which it’s conveyed. Matt Bailey, speaking from the bustling Moscone Center, delves into how the internet has not only added more communication platforms but also emphasized the truth in Marshall McLuhan’s saying, 'the medium is the message.' Different platforms can shape the way audiences perceive the same message, making the choice of medium a strategic and crucial decision.

For instance, while YouTube is fantastic for visual storytelling—like Blendtec’s 'Will it blend?' series—it may not be as effective for text-based communication, which might find a better home on blogging platforms. Twitter, meanwhile, acts as a good supporting medium, augmenting the reach but not serving as the cornerstone. Understanding these differences can mean the difference between a message that resonates and one that misses the mark.

Matt urges marketers to step back and thoroughly recognize the core message they wish to communicate, evaluate the best medium for its distribution, and then allocate their resources accordingly. By doing so, they can focus their efforts on the most effective platform, ensuring that other channels naturally support the primary means of communication. His advice underscores a strategic approach to digital marketing, one that aligns message, medium, and audience for maximum impact.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Context The chapter, titled 'Introduction and Context,' seems to dive into the environment of San Francisco, specifically at the Moscone Center during a search engine strategies event. It features a conversation with Pat Dailey, a marketing expert. The discussion hints at a retrospective understanding of a famous phrase, 'the medium is the message,' and its relevance in contemporary marketing practices. Despite the transcript being slightly unclear, it sets the stage for an exploration of how past marketing wisdom applies to current strategies.
• 00:30 - 01:00: The Evolution of Online Marketing The chapter discusses the initial perception of the internet in the realm of marketing, emphasizing the notion that "the medium is the message." It highlights a common belief at the time that traditional marketing rules had been completely overhauled due to the advent of the internet. However, it argues that this mindset led to a neglect of foundational marketing principles in favor of attempting to innovate entirely new strategies. The chapter concludes by noting that the internet began as a novel medium, prompting marketers to reconsider their approaches.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Fragmentation of Online Marketing Mediums Online marketing has become fragmented into various mediums, each offering a unique approach. These include blogs, video content, podcasts, and platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. This fragmentation exemplifies Marshall McLuhan's principle that 'the medium is the message,' highlighting how each medium influences the content and form of marketing messages.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Meaning of 'The Medium is the Message' This chapter explores the concept that 'The Medium is the Message'. It explains that the medium through which a message is delivered significantly influences how the message is perceived by the audience. An example is provided where the delivery of a message through a platform like YouTube can alter its reception, highlighting how Blendtec uses the 'Will it Blend?' series as a medium to communicate its messages effectively.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Examples of Mediums and Their Effectiveness The chapter discusses the effectiveness of different communication mediums.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Choosing the Right Medium for Your Message This chapter discusses the importance of choosing the right medium for conveying your message effectively. It highlights that while storytelling through certain platforms, like linked stories, can be effective in driving people to a site, it might not work as well on platforms like YouTube or Facebook. The key takeaway is that marketers must identify their primary message and determine the best medium to share it.
• 04:00 - 05:00: Focus on Primary Medium and Resource Allocation The chapter discusses a common dilemma faced by marketers regarding how to allocate their time and resources across various social media platforms. It emphasizes the importance of stepping back to evaluate the best medium for conveying a message effectively. The guidance is to focus on one primary medium that fits best with the available resources and let other platforms grow organically from there.
• 05:00 - 05:30: Conclusion and About the Speaker The chapter titled 'Conclusion and About the Speaker' features a conversation highlighting the importance of media in messaging. The speaker, who is the president of an online marketing company called Sight Logic, explains that they help companies by providing better understanding of their messages, essentially focusing on enhancing conversion rates. The company is characterized by its clients as experts in improving message conversion.

How to Find the Best Medium for Your Message - with Matt Bailey Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 I'm in San Francisco at the search engine strategies bathrooms at Moscone Center Arabic Pat Dailey who's an expert and all things marketing but it sounds like you're tanner going backwards in time because Sun which we want to talk about this famous phrase the medium is the message yeah how that's relevant to marketing today Thank You Ralph it's
• 00:30 - 01:00 always a pleasure really the medium is the message when the internet first started coming around one of the things that really you heard a lot of is that all the rules have been changed the Internet's changing everything and unfortunately I think people got locked into that way of thinking and they lost the foundations of marketing they lost the foundations of what worked in trying to create something entirely new so the web start out as being a new medium
• 01:00 - 01:30 however the more you get involved in online marketing you realize that online marketing itself is now being shattered into hundreds of different mediums video podcasting blogging twittering the facebooking linked inning you know you know each of those is a different immediately and the principle that Marshall McLuhan stated that the medium is the message is never been so true as
• 01:30 - 02:00 it is today so what does it mean the medium is the message the medium is the message means that you can say the same thing but depending upon the medium that you use to say that the listener will receive that message and interpret it differently based on the medium they receive that message so for example getting your meat in getting your message out to via youtube for someone like Blendtec with will it blend that is
• 02:00 - 02:30 an extremely effective visual mechanism for getting their message across will it blend that is the question however for Twitter not really not as effective it's a text-based medium doesn't really describe it however it's a good supporting mechanism but it's not the primary means for other businesses we've seen we're blogging is an extremely effective medium it tells a
• 02:30 - 03:00 story provides links it gives a good background and also it's driving people to the site to help communicate their message it really doesn't work so well on maybe a YouTube or Facebook and so really the challenge is and this is really my message to bring to marketers is you need to find out number one what is your message what's the primary message you're trying to communicate what's the best medium to share that
• 03:00 - 03:30 message the biggest question I get from marketers is where do I spend all my time with all of the social media how do i know i'm doing something you're not wasting my time well take a few steps back first let's look at the message what's the best medium the most effective medium for sharing that message and do you have the resources to work within that and then focus on that primary medium and let everything else kind of build naturally now let me ask
• 03:30 - 04:00 you this mm-hmm your message is the messages the medium is this medium the best for your message anyway yeah you don't have to answer that tell me about your business and what you do all right my business I'm the president of sight logic we're an online marketing company and really our clients have best described us as conversion 'used because that's what we do is we help companies understand the message better
• 04:00 - 04:30 communicate it I'm kind of results thanks so much thank you this is ralph wilson with web mark you