Marketing is more subject to fashion than hemlines. No sooner have you embraced the latest style than a new one comes along to render your efforts a ‘little last season’.

As you view the extreme pictures from the catwalk, it’s all too easy to forget that most people are still quite happy wearing a nice jumper and jeans combo. Just as one marketer rushes to launch a mobile app, another happily relies on a 4pp leaflet, revised each month to show latest prices and offers, to get their message across.

This is the crux. Good marketing is about understanding your audiences first and what your product can do for them; then it’s time to decide on the means to reach them. This hasn’t changed since marketing arrived in the dictionary. For too many organizations the marketing has been determined by the platform rather than the market itself. A typical communications team is made up of people responsible for an activity-based silo. And the advent of the digital and social age has meant that we’ve just created more. Hello digital advertising manager. Greetings social media intern. What say you poor old DM executive, wearing your crumply corduroys?

What we should be doing is taking advantage of these new platforms to refresh our whole approach to marketing. Look at what we want to say and realize that we have more places to say it and plan accordingly. At its heart is content: without good content the way it’s delivered is meaningless. To go back to our fashion analogy it’s the key item in the wardrobe.

The huge advantage that digital and social have over traditional techniques is that you have a more instant interaction and response. No more waiting for the RPCs to return; see straightaway who’s liked your FB activity. It makes it easy to target and personalize, and to modify and enhance. It’s live testing. So when you’re looking at the mix, that spontaneity and engagement may drive you to select digital and social elements.

They don’t need to displace or replace traditional techniques:  they may work better together. The beauty of digital and social media is that used well they will enhance any other elements of the mix as well as working standalone. What would an event be now without live microblogging? What’s a promotion without additional information on a Facebook page? It works in reverse too. Why not use your social platform to promote a live event? Or test a new ad campaign by running snippets of it on youtube?

The digital and social age has given us more items in our wardrobe. And we shouldn’t be afraid to try them on to see if they fit and if they make us look better. But we should be wary about only going out in our vest, or putting on a mismatched outfit. Dress appropriately for who you’re going to meet and be a slave to effective marketing, not just fashion.