Hi, I’m Paul Darley, and thanks for tuning into our June issue of Inside Darley.
Hopefully, if you live in America, you and your family had a great Memorial Day weekend. There’s kind of a new sense of freedom after being so bottled up with the pandemic for the last 15 months. But hopefully you also took time to reflect back and remember those who died in service to our country over the years. And that certainly has a renewed importance to us here with so much of our business being defense these days.
I’ve always considered myself to be a sales and marketing guy, and I’m trying to really figure out what this new marketing mix looks like in the future with digital and really the acceleration of that digital during the covid period. And our first two articles we’ve attached to both marketing articles and maybe can give you some insight as to where the market’s heading. The first article is called 4 Telling Trends of the Future of Marketing, and it talks about those four areas and being number one information overload, which they say maybe isn’t all bad. Number two, people are watching more and reading less. I think we’re seeing that and hopefully you’re getting that with Inside Darley. Number three is Internet platforms come and go. And number four is mobile first, or you’re last.
The second article is titled Marketing in the Year 2025: 5 Key Trends That Will Drive the Future of Marketing. And here they talk about number one, being artificial intelligence. Number two, being the rise of voice marketing. Number three, being that VR virtual reality is going to continue to have a big impact. Number four is the impact of block change, which I find very interesting. Lastly, number five is data that will drive key market decisions. And we’re certainly seeing that.
You probably noticed that there was no mention of trade shows or print. And I even scoured a lot of marketing articles trying to find something on where that fits in. And I do think for both our fire and our military markets, there’s probably a place for that. And it’s great to see trade shows starting up again. If you stick around at the end of this video, we have an interview with Eric Schlett. Eric is the executive vice president and executive director for Clarion’s Fire and Rescue Group, which runs the Fire Department Instructors Conference, or FDIC, usually taking place in April. We had to miss the one in April, 20 and 21. But it’s now going to take place August 2nd through the 7th down in Indianapolis. So we’re going to be there. I’ll tell you what he talks about in terms of his anticipated attendance is very optimistic. I think you’ll really do great to hear. I hope you’ll stick around and listen to that.
What you did hear a lot of is the importance of data in the fire service in both of these articles. Firehouse Magazine ran an article called The Importance of Data in the Fire Service on May 17th by Dr. Lori Moore-Merrell, the president and CEO of the International Public Safety Data Institute. I’ve had an opportunity to know Lori for a number of years prior to that. She served twenty six years with the IAFF, the International Association of Firefighters, and she talks about leveraging EHI and some of the other things in this article so I encourage you to check that out.
You know, as we all start to get back out and more and more in the marketplace without our masks and things, it’s really important that we kind of reengage with our emotional intelligence and our authentic leadership and our management styles. To that end I’ve attached the last attachment as a slideshow that I gave recently or just last week to the Fire Department Safety Officers Association. And where I talk about those three topics and we’ve also included for you in the body of this email that pushed this video out, a link to that video.
In July we’re going to have Ann Smart, the Director at The Family Business Center of Loyola University Chicago. Great friend of ours, a great friend of Darley. We’re going to interview her in the July issue. Stick around for Eric Schlett. I think you’ll find this both entertaining and very informative. Thanks for tuning in. If there’s anything we can be doing to assist you, we hope you’ll reach out to us.
