Information Gatekeepers Or Curators: Marketing Strategy

Marketing and Sales departments in the past have relied heavily on what they call in business circles “Information Asymmetry”.

An Information Asymmetry is essentially a transaction where one of the two parties has more information than the other, putting them in an advantageous position. ‘Business Speak’ tends to overlap with ‘Military Speak’ and you can probably see where this is going - the side of the armed conflict with better intelligence can win fight faster with less wasted resources (human and otherwise).

Ergo, the deal favors the one with more information.

It was assumed by academics that the rise of e-commerce and the internet was going to squash this. Because of the equal availability of information to both parties, how could we come up with anything other than a fair exchange?

The mistake that Economists tend to make when predicting future behavior is assuming that humans are generally “Rational Actors” and will use their logic over their emotions to make a buying decision.

We marketers assume the opposite is the default.

In theory, the marketplace that is supposed to have the most equal distribution of information is the stock market. Which, of course, is hugely influenced by ‘emotional choices’ pretending to be ‘rational choices.’

The truth is somewhere in the middle where both emotions and logic come to bear. The actual effect of the internet on commerce is that the lines have been drawn differently.

Sellers have access to all sorts of analytics about buyers. Buyers have access to more vendors, more alternative purchases, and can rely much more heavily on the reviews of other buyers. Both parties have access to more information, but not necessarily the same information.

The way this has changed the sales and marketing cycle is that instead of being gatekeepers, marketers have become curators.

A successful content marketing strategy means giving away information at every phase of the purchase cycle. Instead of hanging onto information, companies give leads and

customers the right information at the right time.

When the prospect is new to the market, provide them with preliminary information. As they move closer to the buying decision, provide them with more and more information to build a rapport and eventually to close a deal.

In a sense, the information asymmetry now is that prospects are receiving more information from your business than from a competitor. This is desirable because information is what’s moving the prospect through the sales funnel. It’s somewhat analogous to a trail of breadcrumbs - if the prospect is picking up your content, they’re traveling down your sales funnel.

If you’ve heard the expression “Moving The Free-line” - this is the current extension of that. Sellers of products (physical and digital) and services have been somewhat counter-intuitively giving away information they would have charged for in the past. When done correctly, the effect has been to magnetically draw customers in, generate higher revenues, and increase market share.