Miners Need To Get In The Digital Marketing Game
Mining executives need a serious wakeup call regarding marketing. It is such a crucial industry for building everything and making it all run. Yet, that message is not getting through to generalist investors. The reason is that the mining sector as a whole is dismal when it comes to marketing in the digital world.
The landslide victory by Trump in the recent election is a case study that the mining sector should pay attention to.
Harris tried to spend aggressively on traditional media, by using the same old ways leaning on media sources that are dying. That worked in the past, but it doesn’t work now because people have tuned out traditional media and celebrities. Instead they are online, watching video content, listening to podcasts and talking amongst themselves on social media sites. Trump got the memo and Harris didn’t.
Trump jumped on the digital airwaves with both feet, doing longform chats on video and podcasts which invigorated his supporters to get out on social media sites especially on Elon Musk’s X.com to spread the word. This caused a groundswell of support prior to the election and on election day to push him over the top and give him and the GOP a tremendous victory.
Why isn’t the mining sector embracing digital marketing? For the most part it is because like Harris, they are stuck in the past using old ways in a new world. This makes me think of the old saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. That is certainly true if the old dog doesn’t want to learn new tricks. Most mining companies are stuck in their old ways wondering why they are being left behind.
They think by having a profile on X.com and putting out periodic news releases and doing the odd video or audio interview is embracing digital marketing. It is only dabbling when the beast needs to be fed constantly.
There really is no excuse because it can all be done from executives and employees desks at the push of a button to generate content to a huge audience of investors that are at their desks and on their cell phones devouring content. Just waiting to be reached out to as they want to see and hear content about industries and companies for investment opportunities.
One of the key ways that investors learn about companies is through news releases. Mining companies are led by geologists, accounting professionals and lawyers. I religiously read news releases every day from mining companies, and what I see all too often are geologists writing news releases to impress other geologists, or accountants and lawyers writing like they are focused on reaching out to accountants and lawyers. They aren’t really focused on getting the story across to investors.
Then they post their news releases on their X.com profile and maybe do an online interview and think that magic will happen. It doesn’t because it is a dawdling attempt that doesn’t resonate in the digital marketing world.
Look at Michael Saylor, the poster child for Bitcoin promotion. He is relentless in getting the word out about bitcoin, constantly doing video and audio interviews and then his legion of followers gets out on social media to do video, podcasts and social media to talk about what he says. Collectively, they have built a digital marketing machine. Often using the same arguments of why folks should own Bitcoin that parallel gold. They even market it as digital gold.
Meanwhile real gold is in a stealth bull market that has driven prices to several records this year which makes for incredible free cash flow growth for gold miners that are getting no love from generalist investors. Michael Saylor and the Bitcoin fanatics have ripped the narrative of why alternatives to fiat currencies are needed from the hands of gold bulls.
Lately, Michael Saylor is even working on getting the message out to corporations that instead of holding fiat currencies in their bank accounts, that they should hold Bitcoin. Some tech companies may actually listen to him and start moving some of their cash into Bitcoin. He is also trying to get the American government to have strategic holdings of Bitcoin in their reserves. Can you imagine the American government adding to their debt, which is already unsustainable to hold onto a digital currency that has no other purpose than for trading back and forth.
You can’t go anywhere online and not see content from Michael Saylor and other Bitcoin promoters. I go on my X.com stream, where I follow tons of people interested in mining, yet it is almost half about Bitcoin and half about mining. Keep in mind, those I follow are heavily skewed toward mining and my stream has a lot on Bitcoin and Michael Saylor.
Gold has remarkable advocates including Pierre Lassonde, Rob McEwen, Eric Sprott, Ross Beaty and Frank Giustra, but they struggle to keep up to Michael Saylor who is an absolute promotional dynamo. Michael Saylor is constantly feeding the digital marketing beast.
In reality, there has never been a better time to be a gold bull, as the world, led by America, is in a Death Spiral of Debt that has a straw that will break the debt camel’s back which is the cost of servicing the debt. The fiat currencies are backed by nothing but debt and constantly destroy purchasing power consistently since the end of the Gold Standard.
The Death Spiral of Debt and alarming growth in the cost of servicing the debt, plus the destruction of purchasing power of fiat currencies is a perfect storm for gold. Unfortunately, that narrative is not resonating with generalist investors in the West.
What has driven gold to several record highs in 2024, is the buying from retail investors in China, India and others in the East that are fantastic buy and hold investors. With the heavy lifting being done by central bankers in the BRICS nations that are selling their US debt and US dollars to buy gold. The Euro as well and this year, gold overtook the Euro to be the second biggest world reserve currency, as it is the soundest money. They are putting themselves on the Gold Standard 2.0.
Ultimately, the debt and fiat currency system is broken beyond repair and it will lead to the world going back on the Gold Standard. It is the best thing that can happen for the World economy. The sooner the better.
But, to bring the generalist investors in the West into the gold party and also start giving more love to the gold stocks requires the gold sector, from gold mining executives to retail gold bulls and gold stock bulls, to join the digital marketing world in a big way. It is time for the gold and gold stock bulls to learn some new tricks.
The same can be said for copper. While copper miners are lamenting that copper is not being recognized as a critical metal, and not being sanctioned as such by governments, the consumers of the world aren’t being woken up to the reality of how important copper is for every electric product used every day. Whether governments recognize it or not, copper is the most critical metal of all metals in our electrified world.
Meanwhile, demand for copper is growing rapidly with big surges in demand coming from electric vehicles, AI, crypto mining and other technology that all need copper to build them and make them work. What is less well known, because the copper miners are not getting the story out, is that the supply chain is ill prepared to meet the demand right around the corner.
What generalist investors, consumers and politicians don’t get is that there is a looming supply deficit that can only be fixed somewhat by much higher prices of copper. Even if the price of copper goes up by two or three times from its current price, copper mines take years and a lot of money to build so it can’t fix the supply chain problems, only help a bit. You can’t turn copper mines on like flipping a switch to turn on your lights.
The supply chain of copper has been broken for a long time. Copper discoveries have fallen off a cliff over the past couple of decades. Which means that there aren’t nearly enough new copper mines in development. Copper miners are going deeper into the ground for lower grades while struggling to increase production and replace their old mines with new mines.
Do generalist investors clearly understand the opportunity in copper explorers, developers and miners? Not really. Are consumers aware of how important copper is to make everything electric when they turn on the switch to fun them? Hardly at all.
There truly has never been a better time for miners, explorers and developers in gold, copper, silver and other metals. But, you wouldn’t know that when looking at their stock performance.
It is time for the miners to join the digital marketing world.
In Closing
My primary focus when looking at mining stocks has always been on the projects. But, these days digital marketing efforts are becoming just as important.
A great project that is not being relentlessly promoted with digital marketing tools, will struggle to build an enthusiastic audience of shareholders that hold their stocks dearly and find new investors to aggressively buy.
All the best,
Allan Barry Laboucan
