Broadband Evolved

Since the dawn of the Internet, telephone companies and broadband providers have been focused on marketing commodity connectivity in an effort to steal each others customers and determine who is the best provider.

I don't get it.  Collectively, these guys have massive brands, huge balance sheets and millions of existing customer relationships.  Most importantly, they control the core platform that the entire web is built upon.  With all of these strategic assets in their possession, then why do broadband providers continue to be stuck in neutral, playing the same old games and delivering the same old commodity messages.

They're stuck because of stinky marketing.  Here are 5 examples:

1.  Broadband marketers are notoriously myopic.  They mimic each other and repeatedly message around speed, reliability, and price.  Check out the main landing page below for AT&T DSL.  Four different packages and all of them are ideal for some type of downloading. Thank goodness for AT&T downloading — and also for little kids to carry our pumpkins even though it's Christmas.

2.  Broadband marketers think connectivity is a one way street.  They talk about connecting consumers and small businesses to the web as if their customers will know exactly what to do once they get there.  Telcos do a great job of delivering fat pipes to connect you to the web– but if you need help making sense of the world (e.g. engaging with prospects, blogging, optimizing for Google, etc) then you'd better plan on talking with someone else.  If broadband marketers did not stink, then such marketing value would be built-in to the broadband itself.

3.  Broadband marketers are ignorant about the value of inbound connectivity.  The world has changed forever and the key to SMB success is getting discovered in local search and generating inbound leads without paying the Google PPC tax.  With few exceptions, broadband providers have not even attempted to introduce value added services to help SMBs get discovered online, converse with prospects and generate inbound leads.  From this point forward, the value of broadband will be directly proportional to the number of inbound leads that it generates.  In order to maintain existing customers and attract new ones, broadband providers would be wise to incorporate inbound marketing services into their core connectivity solutions. 

4.  Broadband marketers are focused on back office (and backward) bundles.  The trend recently among broadband marketers has been to offer bundles of back office services to help SMBs better manage their infrastructure.  The standard bundles include hosted email, virus protection, data backup, and web collaboration services.  Shared web hosting packages are also available, but typically require third-party intervention due to complexity.  In my opinion, the entire VAS bundling strategy is backwards.  SMBs, especially in this economy, care much more about the front office and simply want services that can help them get discovered in online search, converse with prospects, and generate inbound marketing momentum.

5.  Broadband marketers have lost touch with their historical roots.  20 years ago the process of generating inbound sales leads for SMBs was relatively straight forward and the key elements to success (a phone line and a yellow pages listing) were readily supplied by the local phone company. Today, however, the SMB marketing process is much more complicated due to the advent of the web, the evolution of online search, and the gradual decline in print directories. 

It's simple.  In order to stop stinking – broadband marketers must think creatively and work to leverage their core broadband assets to once again become a trusted provider of high-value inbound marketing services.

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