"Advertising is based on one thing - happiness"

Don Draper, Mad Men

Everyone loved the show Mad Men. It brought back Madison Avenue’s advertising world of a bygone era, replete with powerful executives, billowing cigar smoke, and tailored suits.

While long gone are the 1960’s, it feels though that many companies haven’t moved on, especially when it comes to their marketing. They still live in an era where outrageous Don Draper style, top-of-the-mind billboard advertising is the way to go.

While Don Draper certainly did well for himself, the rise of digital technologies have not only give companies new opportunities, they have also changed the way people consume and make decisions in a fundamental way. Not changing and adapting your strategy constantly is a surefire way of getting left behind.

Here are five ways your marketing is outdated, and why Mad Men style advertising won’t work as well in a modern day marketing strategy.

1. You Dismiss New Platforms, Preferring to Stick With What Works

When a new platform or feature comes along (and that’s something that happens quite often), many companies will often dismiss the new, and just stick with what they’ve been doing. Reasons that  often cite is that the platform doesn’t look right for them, or they don’t have time to try something new out.

But with the pace consumers and the landscape moves, not trying new things out often would be a grave mistake. Sure, not every platform or new feature is going to work out (look at Google+), but you only need to be an early adopter of one successful platform, or to nail one new feature before anyone else does, for the returns to be worth it all. If you stick to the 80/20 rule, and you’re always experimenting and testing new things out, you won’t regret it.

Live streaming is gathering momentum, and new advertising methods are now popping up all the time as major social networks start rolling out their monetization strategies.

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‍2. You Think Social Media is Free

Many people believe that you don’t have to spend any money on social media to see returns. In fact, many companies consciously avoid ‘buying Likes’ on Facebook and are extremely wary about the efficacy of advertising on social media.

This all comes down to a bit of misinformation. Sure, social media is free-to-play, but not using advertising methods would mean you’re missing out on real opportunities to drive direct returns from social media. It also means you’ll be left behind while other companies surge ahead.

Social media analytics suites nowadays are comprehensive. Advanced view filtering, conversion pixels and more graphs and numbers than you can point a stick at mean you’ll be able to track your spend and ROI extremely easily.