Mass Marketing dominated the last century: You need to reach the masses through as many channels as possible. You need retail stores, fliers, website, PR, Ads, Social Media, and and and and and…until you finally reach critical mass and you succeed.

Target is a mass marketer, Huyndai and Delta. Once you achieve ubiquity you get revenue, advancing the cycle, ultimately, reaching scale.

Mass Marketers love macro (soft) metrics while direct marketers love micro (hard) metrics.

Direct Marketers need to get it right on a small scale. The mailer can be forwarded to 200 people, gets a 4% response rate; now you can mail it to thousands of households with confidence.

Direct Marketers experiment on a small scale. When they scale up, they are confident it’s going to work. The Mass Marketers place a big on thousands of little cues, little signals, converations.

A Direct Marketer is the guy at the Blackjack table, placing constant $5 bets. The Mass Marketer is the guy placing a million dollar bet on one number on the Roulette table.

Why do we still revert back to Mass Marketing?

It’s easier to put off the day of reckoning, hoping for a miracle two months in, not wanting to admit failure. Almost every marketing initiative is better when you treat it like direct marketing. Many of the Mass Marketing initiatives are based on hope. Brands rather invest in marketing that’s based in results.

It’s very romantic, ‘Mad Men-like’ to spend the majority of the money at the start. That’s a big bet and you might lose miserably. Rather, bet small in the beginning and scale up when you see a pattern.

We all need to be direct marketers now.

Some agencies are still struggling to integrate digital into their offerings, developing holistic communication and prospering in the digital culture. It’s getting late in the game because integration was just a small mountain to conquer, compared to the Mt. Everest all of us are about to face:

Keeping up with the increasing speed of technology change

Our greatest challenge is simply keeping up-to-date with the technology from both the perspective of communication product delivery and media. Agencies were struggling to implement new experiences when Timeline was introduced and the new retina display for the iPad caused chaos for publishers and advertisers.

We have to acknowledge making the transition into the new world is not enough, we have to have our finger on the pulse of this dramatically changing world, filled with streams and feeds, and be able to respond to the changing requirements that technology is forcing upon you. No one wants to be left behind, drowning in the streams and no one wants to appear dated and behind the times with when they communicate digitally.

The emerging fragmentation of social media channels has just begun and adds a level of complexity to the task at hand. This doesn’t mean we should jump on the next Path bandwagon once it rolls through ad land. Successful agencies of the future will have to keep up with the technological change and being able to anticipate it, build for it, and stay ahead of it. Agencies need to constantly read and live the pulse of change, build small experiences on new platforms to experiment. test, and, possibly, scale up and down. And you thought integration was a challenge. You ain’t see nothing yet.

We all know the lesson President Obama’s campaign taught us in 2008: Social Media can be powerful and a game changer. 4 years have passed and almost everybody learned that lesson by now.

The 2012 primary season is in full swing and Social Media is not the hottest thing in town anymore (still important), but we learned a few more lessons in the last few months:

Behold, the power of earned media.

Gingrich’s campaign has been declared dead numerous times. He had no money to spend on ads, he had no organization and no support. 20 years ago he would have had no chance to make it to South Carolina, In 2012, he won South Carolina by a landslide.

Why?

Because he played earned/owned media platforms masterfully to create even more earned media. In a world filled with 24/7 new channels, Twitter feeds, blogs and other content platforms, the beast needs to be fed constantly. Gingrich did exactly that, coming up with new ideas, new messages, new proposals every day. It clearly shows the diminishing return of paid ads and the increasing power of earned/owned media supported by paid media.

Be agile.

This has been the strength of political advertising for a while: It’s agile. You say something controversial at 5pm, your opponent will exploit it by 6pm. The marketing world is still stuck in old, traditional production cycles and outdated timelines. Communication and conversations don’t start when your first ad launches – it’s ongoing. Brands need to be more agile and leave room in the budget to reply to a crisis, exploit the weakness of a competitor or tap into new consumer insights immediately.

Forget about standard formats

What was the most talked about creative so far in the primaries? Not a 30-second spot, a 728 x 180 banner or a 60-second radio spot. Nope. It was the 27-minute documentary, released by Gingrich’s Super PAC. The old standards just feel, well, old. People want variety: long-form documentaries, YouTube snacks, podcasts. Give them what they want.

Appeal to the heart.

2004 was about fear. 2008 about hope. 2012 will be about anger. The successful candidates in 2004 and 2008 appealed to emotions, not to the brain of the voters. Romney tried to play to the common sense of voters, being the technocrat that will fix what ails the economy. Gingrich tapped into the anger of people, being the angriest man in the room. Guess who’s leading the race today?

Take risks.

As the advertising and media world becomes more fractured, you take a huge risk when you don’t take risks. Tactics that worked in the past, proven ways, ideas by committee are maybe the riskiest paths you can take at this point. There’s a moment in every campaign when you have to take major risks or you’ll drop out quickly just like Tim Pawlenty. Dig deep and understand what your brand stands for. Then take risks and lead with your gut. It worked for Clinton, Bush and Obama. It will work for your brand.

What’s the difference between a Starbucks shop around the corner and your local coffee joint?

Personality.

Well-run, small businesses have personality. Large companies often lack that competitive advantage. Large companies replace that with a brand. Large companies are also not social organizations, that’s why they have massive problems integrating social throughout the organization. Big brands will learn over time and advanced brands will transform into a social business.

Small businesses are already social businesses.

When you are a small business, stop with the Social Media already. You don’t need to copy tactics of big brands or try mimick their behavior on social platforms. Rather, build relationships. Be yourself. Use the platforms to amplify your personality.

Stand out by being yourself.