Q&A: Hofstra’s Mitch Tobol Urges Businesses To 'Buckle Up'

AMITYVILLE, NY — An owner of the Amityville-based CGT Marketing, Mitch Tobol has worked with startups to multinational corporations across wide-ranging industries for more than 35 years. Today, he guides his clients through the elusive digital-dominant advertising world to help them build their brands.

Tobol is also a program instructor at Hofstra's Entrepreneurship Assistance Center. The university will sponsor a series of talks he will give this spring. (More information below).

Patch caught up with Tobol recently to get a pulse on all things marketing, from the rise of influencers to Generation Z-ers as the next largest demographic to consumers' greater expectations since the pandemic.

What are some basic steps most small businesses, say, with 20 employees or less, should take to step up their marketing game?

Mitch Tobol: One of the best pieces of advice I have given and what we follow at my agency is to seek out and understand a company’s customers as much as possible. From what drives them to make a purchase to what problem or challenge your product or service solves. Once you truly understand this dynamic, you can then create content that matters and figure out which marketing channels will work.

The next step would be to create a website that complies with all the search criteria Google publishes: it’s fast, responsive, uses the right keywords and is connected to appropriate sites. Your website carries a very heavy lift in today’s marketing environment because your prospects end up selling themselves before they even want to talk to a salesperson or visit a store. Because in today’s digital ecosystem, consumers interact with their devices more than individual people, by choice.

How has the marketing environment changed in the past five years, particularly since before the pandemic and now?

The migration towards digital interactions and transactions was already in process prior to the pandemic. It was mostly being driven by Millennials and Generation Y who have grown up with technology and identify with it. The [COVID-19] pandemic accelerated the change to lightning speed which has touched all demographics. It’s been like gas on a fire pushing companies to pivot not only their operations but how they interact with their customers.

Time spent on the internet has increased, particularly in accessing websites, email and social media. Interestingly, engagement is down across all channels right now. Could be from several factors; that is, the war in the Ukraine, relaxing of mask restrictions, etcetera.

Consumers have altered their buying patterns considerably in recent years. For example, before the pandemic, most probably never thought of having others shop for their groceries and deliver them. How else have they changed?

The journey buyers take, whether it’s B2C or B2B, has been radically altered. We used to think of the process in linear terms; however, now it’s a jumbled mess. Prospects and customers can and do encounter your firm in dozens of ways and in a different sequence. The need for an omnichannel approach to marketing is more important than ever before. In addition, consumers now expect their experiences with a company to be seamless, meaning online, on the phone and/or in the store are all orchestrated to work together.

Talk about how content and influencer marketing has changed the advertising landscape.

Since there’s been a continuing downward trend in the trust of our institutions and corporations, smart marketers have shifted their focus and marketing dollars acquiring social proof. Influencers—now a billion-dollar marketplace—are a big part of that. Consumers will trust an influencer more than the company itself.

Content creation is a fast-growing and impactful part of any successful marketing efforts. In fact, in some of the largest social networks, there are positions now called content strategists. That’s how important content is today. Consumers respond to content that they perceive as valuable. That’s why the first step is to understand your customers first, then you can create content that matters.

When we last spoke in 2015, you emphasized how businesses must pay attention to the millennials as the largest demographic supplanting the baby boomers. What should they know about millennials now and those following them from Generation Z?

Millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) are roughly 25 percent of the US population. They are a bifurcated demographic with the younger half more cost conscious and the older half more environmentally focused. Millennials have led older generations in technology adoption and embracing digital solutions. They are a generation who want to be fulfilled within the workplace while still having time to run with things they are passionate about.

Generation Z (born between 1997-2012) will soon become the largest group of consumers. They are the most ethnically diverse generation in American history, and account for 27 percent of the US population. According to new Stanford-affiliated research, they are highly collaborative, self-reliant and pragmatic.

This generation has been raised on the internet and social media, with some of the oldest finishing college by 2020 and entering the workforce. They consider themselves more accepting and open-minded than any generation before it and are the first consumers to have grown up wholly in the digital era. They’re tech-savvy and mobile-first—and they have high standards for how they spend their time online.

If I can ask you to forecast the not-so-distant future, how might marketing change with the ever growing automation of the workforce?

If it’s anything like what’s been happening, buckle up. There are now thousands of software solutions to assist the marketing process, with more being created every day. Marketing departments and agencies need to be agile to cope with all the changes. This new breed of software combines AI and automation using information and behaviors to allow companies to scale. This technological approach demands that the workforce is capable of using and understanding data to create more effective and timely marketing plans.

However, I believe the following will always be true, and I would suggest using this as a guiding light in your marketing efforts:

“Define your audience, go where they hang out and craft your messaging in a way that resonates with them.”

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Mitch Tobol will give the following Hofstra-sponsored talks (all currently scheduled as online-only events) from 8 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on their respective dates. For more information and to register, contact April Jones, programs administrator of Entrepreneurship and Business Development, at [email protected].

April 13: Building a Brand for Small Businesses in 2022 (Free event)
• Benefits of a Brand
• Mistakes to Avoid
• 5 Steps to Success

April 20: Social Media Must-Have Tools
• The Latest in Social Media
• 7 Essential Social Media Tools
• Selecting the Right Social Media Channels for Your Business

April 27: Create a LinkedIn Action Plan for Your Business
• The LinkedIn Marketing Environment
• 5 Factors for a Successful Action Plan
• Executing Your Action Plan

May 4: Email Marketing: How to Launch a Successful Campaign
• Strategies for Content Creation
• The Marketing Technology You Will Need
• 7 Tips for Success