Marketing in the DARC Ages? Take a Deep Breath

My friend Alice - a savvy and experienced marketer - mentioned to me that she’d been reading a HubSpot publication called “Hiring in the DARC Ages”. She asked this opinionated marketer what I thought about it. (”Hiring” is a chapter in the book, Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot founders and, respectively, CEO and CTO of the outfit. The chapter is available here.)

Like everything I’ve seen - and liked - from HubSpot, “DARC Ages” is interesting, provocative, and probably just a teensy-weensy bit exaggerated in spots. (Or maybe just a teensy-weensy bit ahead of the curve.)

The thesis is that successful companies of the future will not be built on outbound marketing success (think Mad Men) but, rather, on inbound marketing excellence.

It’s certainly hard to argue that inbound plays an increasingly important role in marketing. I’ve heard David Meerman Scott - an advisor to the HubSpot board - speak a couple of times, and both times he’s done a simple little exercise asking the audience about how they find product information/make purchase decisions. Not surprisingly…

Yup! We all go to the Google.

And we all know that any company that’s not doing at least some rudimentary inbound marketing - something one non-baby step beyond mere “web presence” - is more than likely losing out on opportunities. Hey, these days, you can even buy a casket online.

So I agree with the fundamental HubSpot point that marketing departments need to look for and groom employees who are “inbound marketing savvy.”  And they provide a framework in which to evaluate employees, which is where the DARC comes from.

D = Hire Digital Citizens
A = Hire for Analytical chops
R = Hire for Web Reach
C = Hire Content Creators

To identify passport-carrying Digital Citizens, HubSpot suggests finding out what RSS reader someone uses; what blogs they read; whether they blog, twitter, or YouTube; whether they’re on LinkedIn or Facebook - and when they last updated their profile. It also suggests you have that someone show you their blog/RSS reader/Tweets. (Opinionated Marketer to prospective marketing hires in the DARC ages: if you have a highly personal (ahem) any kind of presence out there, get yourself a more professional one a.s.a.p.) 

Another question it suggests asking is whether someone knows whether they’ll come up first when you google their name. I guess the point is not whether you actually do come up first. You may not have a lot of control over it.

Personally, I run horseneck and neck with equine consultant Maureen Rogers, but - at least for today - we’re number one!

Someone with an even more common name can’t be expected to be at the head of the class. I have a friend with the same name as an aging B-list celebrity, so - although my friend does have a web presence through articles and presentations - he doesn’t show up very easily.

Analytical Chops have always been useful in a marketer. (Ask me about my minor concentration in Applied Marketing at the Sloan School. I used to love, love, love that conjoint analysis.) But now that there’s data that’s inbound, and, thus, can inarguably be closely sourced, it’s more important than ever to have someone around who can analyze it.

Here’s the way that HubSpot suggests testing for it:

…have your prospective hire bring to the interview his or her favorite spreadsheet with pivot tables, and show
you some counter-intuitive insight that came out of the spreadsheet model in graph format.

Gosh! What if your favorite spreadsheet doesn’t have pivot tables. (Mine doesn’t but, then again, it’s not used for analysis.) And what if all of the data’s screaming intuitive!  It can happen. Not to mention that sometimes counter-intuitive is both counter-intuitive and just plain wrong.

Web Reach is something that HubSpot says you should also look for, i.e., try to hire someone who has a lot of industry followers on Facebook, Twitter, Blogpost… The example they use of strong web reach is Guy Kawasaki. Personally, couldn’t they have set the bar a little higher? (Not!)

Sure, wouldn’t all marketing bloggers like to have the reach of Guy Kawasaki. Or Seth Godin. But, realistically folks…

One of the things HubSpot suggests as a means to identify reach is to query your candidates about their Facebooking/blogging/ tweeting/LinkedIn-iness, etc. - especially with respect to whether they have a specific focus on your industry. Personally, if there’s someone out there who is a known force in your industry - popular blog, tweets that matter, etc. - then you should know about them already. And maybe be pursuing them. As AmEx did in the Guy Kawasaki instance. (I.e., I’m just guessing here, but my guess is that AmEx didn’t bring Guy in for a sit down and then ask him how many followers he has. They went after him because of his name, reputation, caliber…)

As for those with large followings for something they’re doing other than in your industry, they’ve clearly developed the knack for attracting attention that bodes well - but which may not necessarily translate into anything for your industry. Maybe Mary’s got a massive following in the crocheted dog-sweater world, but will never have the same passion for widgets. 

At the same time, someone with good content but not necessarily well-followed web presence (either in or out of your industry), may be capable of extending their reach if they put their mind to it.

The C in DARC Ages is for Content Creation where, bless ‘em, the HubSpot calls for excellent writing skills. Marketing departments need those who can create sharp content that gets linked to, and which draws comments.

Here’s my add-on advice here (when it comes to blogging, anyway) - especially for smaller companies. Yes, if you are blogging about a hot topic, people on the look will find it. But, whatever you’re doing, you may always find yourself lost on page 2 because your industry’s Guy Kawasakis have such a huge head start on you. One way to move yourself on up is to comment on the posts of your industry’s Guy Kawasakis. If your comments are interesting enough, people will click through to your site (if you’re allowed to provide the link). You also might want to write posts that key-off of posts written by your industry’s Guy Kawasakis. You may end up being added to a great blogroll or have a biggie write a post that keys off of something that you’ve written.

There’s more to the DARC ages article - it’s definitely worth a read.

And I don’t think that old-timer marketers need to get depressed or discouraged by it. Take a deep breath: The HubSpot is not saying that, if you can’t be Guy Kawasaki you’re irrelevant, as much as it’s saying don’t let yourself be irrelevant.

We all need to be speak some degree of inbound marketing - even if it’s just one-tense, beginner, ask directions skill rather than full I-can-translate-Hungarian-poetry fluency. And we all need to be able to reposition our skills so that they match up with what’s needed in this world.

If we don’t, guess what?

We end up on the outside looking in.

This could happen, anyway. (Age discrimination is serious matter for job hunters, especially in fields like marketing, where the image definitely skews young.)

But nothing will guarantee your irrelevance faster than not getting with the program and recognizing that, whether you like it or not, inbound marketing matters, and is going to matter more and more over time.

 

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A tip of the Opinionated Marketer’s best chapeau to Alice M. for pointing the DARC Ages out to me.

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