Keynote summary

In Gary’s speech at Elevate New York 2013 (watch it here) he talked about the difference in marketing between ten years ago an now. And how marketers (most of them) refuse to adapt to the times of now and keep using old school methods (almost) nobody opens/watch anymore. Methods that become more and more expensive while turning into less and less efficient ways to bring in results.

Some of the old school methods mentioned are the direct email, email marketing, printing, radio and TV. Even AdWords has announced a decreased in ads click of 15% the last year. Same goes with sites like Groupon, that a few years back was a real success, now emails from them are considered spam and annoying.

“We’re marketing in a way that we’d never act like that as a customer.”

Time and attention are the most valuable assets now, and marketers should use new ways to get this from people. Gary suggest to think about the things a few years back we wouldn’t think of doing. Of things we don’t necessarily like or approve of. And put aside our “fear” and use these to market our business. We need to flip it – and use storytelling in at least four social media channels today: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram.

Also, we should drop the things we ourselves don’t use anymore – how many ads do we still click on? Or how many emails do we run to read? Close to none? Therefore, drop it. Their efficiency is close to 0 today.

The social networks are 2 ways conversations that we should use to natively storytelling to bring awareness and value to our listeners. They’re not (anymore) channels to push our promotions and get impressions. That one is over. For example, Twitter is a channel we should use to listen and shut up, while we only engage in conversations, listen to people and respond (add value!).

Basically, valuable CONTENT and ENGAGEMENT are the key things that are effective in the times of now. Watch Gary’s video, he’s wise but also a great speaker that will fascinate you and open you eyes about what marketing really is in the times of now.

“We get stuck in the ways in the ways we market.”

Gary Vaynerchuk

Gary is an entrepreneur with a very vast experience in a lot of fields. One of his great passions is to collect wine. As he discovered early in his career the power of eCommerce and marketing, he started using this power for his business. Gary shortly entered also in the video making business elated to his wine business.

In 2009, together with his brother launched VaynerMedia, a new breed of agency that would help Fortune 500 companies like GE, PepsiCo, Green Mountain Coffee, the NY Jets, and the Brooklyn Nets find their social voices and build their digital brands through micro content and other storytelling actions. The idea took hold – what started as a 6-person project 4 years ago has swelled to a 250-strong team spread across USA.

He’s now also a speaker, sharing his experience in business with people around the world, angel invest in startups like Tumblr, Path, Grand St and Uber, and randomly pop up on TV. Gary has also found a passion for storytelling and writing, being really proud of his next book “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook”.

In a recent event in New York he talked about the marketing of today. We’ve watched it and summarized a little bit for you. Read the lines below and watch the video when you get the time. It is truly inspiring and revealing to how we do marketing today.