The Century-Old Marketing Methods That Make Businesses Successful Today

(NOTE: After a two and a half month break, due to a combination of busyness at work and in life, I’m back to continue this series on the 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021.)

New. Marketers know that people are attracted to anything new. That’s why marketers use the word whenever and wherever they can.

The funny thing is that “new” even attracts and mesmerizes marketers and companies.

Look, “new” is awesome. I love new things, new methods, new tools, etc.

But I’m here to tell you that when it comes to marketing, “new” is overrated and in many ways an illusion.

You might think that the only way your company can succeed in 2021 is by harnessing the latest, greatest marketing technique.

Well, I’m here to politely tell you that you’re wrong.
It’s not the new marketing techniques that you should be focusing on. It’s the old, forgotten marketing principles.

I’ll explain what I mean in just a second. But first, I need to tell you a quick story to explain what I mean.

Ancient Technologies and Inventions You Never Knew Existed

I used to love watching a show on The History Channel called Ancient Discoveries.

The show featured ancient technologies and ancient inventions that are thought to be modern but actually existed in the ancient world.

Why don’t we know about these ancient technologies and inventions? Because they’ve been lost and then reinvented. We basically forgot about them.

What were the types of technologies and inventions that they revealed in this series? Amazing ones like these:

•  A computer-like device that may have been used to calculate the movements of stars and planets called the Antikythera Mechanism
• Automatic doors and coin-operated machines invented by a guy named Heron in ancient Alexandria.
•  A jar that appears to be an electric battery
• Archimedes use of solar power to defeat the Romans
• And many other amazing things you wouldn’t believe existed in the ancient world

Unbelievable, right? Who would’ve thought these things were invented centuries ago?

Well, you’d be just as amazed to discover that many of the new marketing methods have been around for almost a century (some longer than that).

Ancient Marketing Methods You Never Knew Existed

I love discovering and reading old marketing books. For me, it’s like finding a lost treasure that most people have forgotten ever existed.

One of the main things that I’m constantly discovering in these old marketing books is the fact that many of the marketing methods and marketing techniques that we think are new were actually invented

• Split testing & ad tracking – Claude Hopkins was talking about tracking ads and split testing in his book Scientific Advertising back in 1923 – 98 years ago
• Lead generation – As I’ve been reading some classic books on advertising by John Caples, I was struck by this realization: many of the famous ads he talked about all focused on capturing leads, not making direct sales from their ads. Many of these ads are from the early 1900s (over a century old)!
• Content marketing – I’ve discovered the oldest known content marketing to exist. And they are over two hundred years old!

My point?

In the same way that the ancient technologies and inventions were overlooked until rediscovered or reinvented, many of the marketing methods many think were invented in the dot-com days were created way before then.

The early internet pioneers and the early dotcom companies just were smart enough to harness these methods that the mainstream business world had forgotten.

And this is the real reason for their massive success.

The 12 Marketing Fundamentals You Need to Succeed in 2021

As I said at the beginning of this series back in January, I believe that the sweet spot in 2021 is the place where opportunity and the fundamentals meet. 

You see, the people and companies that succeed the most are the ones that keep their eye out for opportunities and then take advantage of them by harnessing the fundamentals. 

What fundamentals? The marketing fundamentals that have existed for at least 100 years and that will probably exist for at least another 100 years.

In fact, I believe that there are 12 marketing fundamentals that all companies should be focused on if they want to succeed in the second half of 2021.

So far, I’ve revealed what the first seven marketing fundamentals are. Since it’s been a while since my last article, let me give you a quick recap…

The First 7 Marketing Fundamentals:

Here are the six marketing fundamentals that I’ve revealed so far are in this series:

1.  The first marketing fundamental is attention. Because without attention, there is no marketing.
2.  The second marketing fundamental is attraction. Without attraction, all the work you put into capturing their attention will be wasted.
3. The third marketing fundamental is follow-up. Because two of the biggest mistakes many companies make are tied to follow-up. They don’t follow up at all. They don’t follow up enough.
4. The fourth marketing fundamental is a unique selling proposition. Because if you’re ever going to get your prospects to choose your company, product, or service over your competition, then they have to know WHY and HOW your business is different and better than any of the other choices.
5. The fifth marketing fundamental is your Who or what is commonly called your “target market.” Because if you don’t get this group of prospects right, then all of your marketing efforts will produce little results.
6. The 6th marketing fundamental is your offer. If you don’t create a powerful offer, even the right “whos” won’t end up purchasing from you.
7. The 7th marketing fundamental if your content or copy. Once you have chosen your “who” and your most powerful offer, you must choose the right words to inspire and influence your target audience to take action (whatever you decide that should be).

I’ve already shared two important articles on this 7th marketing fundamental:

• The 7th Marketing Fundamental You Need to Succeed in 2021
• The 11 Indispensable Elements Behind All Great Content or Copy
• How to Make Ordinary Content (or Copy) Feel Extraordinary

Over the next few days, I will share two more articles on this particular fundamental.

One will be about the obstacles that all successful copy or content needs to overcome and the other article will be about the secret behind powerful content marketing and copywriting.

I think you’re really going to like them so stay tuned.

Catch Up on What You Missed in This Series

In the meantime, subscribe below to be automatically be notified when the next article goes live.

If you would like to learn more about any of the above fundamentals, then click here to choose any articles you’d like to read. (There are now 34 articles you can read in this series.)

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