Where is the best place to put your marketing dollars?
New media, traditional media, inbound marketing, out bound marketing, e-mail marketing, affiliate marketing, fusion marketing, white hat and black hat marketing… there are so many new terms in the marketing world it can make your head spin. What is a small business person to do? Things are changing so quickly in the marketing world it is almost impossible for a small business person to keep up, much less know where to best place their money to grow their business. In this blog I am going to explain a few of these terms and then offer what I believe you will find is a common sense approach to investing in you business’s future growth.
Terms:
New media – messages delivered electronically via e-mail, social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and the internet.
Traditional media – media delivered via print, television, radio, billboards, and mail.
Inbound marketing – a strategy of enticing prospects to come to you. The first of these was directories and the yellow pages. Today website optimization (SEO) and pay-per click (PPC), blogging, social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube) and permission based e-mails are all good inbound marketing tools.
Outbound marketing – Out bound marketing is often confused with traditional marketing because most traditional marketing, except directories, is outbound. The strategy here is to catch the prospect’s attention long enough to deliver the message of how the product can help him. Placing ads on the internet is also outbound marketing, as is telemarketing.
E-mail marketing – most people generally understand what e-mail marketing is – delivering a message via e-mail. However, a very small percentage of small businesses understand how vital gaining the audience’s permission is and how not obtaining it will hurt you today and tomorrow.
A few weeks ago I was at a meeting and someone held up some traditional advertising and announced – “old media” is dead. We strictly promote ourselves with “new media.” Continuing, they said we are only going to use the internet and social media. If utilized properly, these should get results — but I was not convinced they had the skills or were going to dedicate the time and effort to make that work. Without the proper know-how and constant vigilance, these media will not produce the level of results that they can.
I often hear people say they have a website and have tried social media but they don’t work. Unfortunately, the reality often is that the small business person does not know how to make these perform optimally and they do not have the time to dedicate each day to maximize their effectiveness. As a marketing coach and marketing consultant, I am asked to help firms transition from strictly traditional marketing and advertising to a blend of traditional and new marketing that is most profitable for them. The key is to understand the media in both worlds and then develop a plan that tracks the profit generated from the activities. I follow a radical philosophy in marketing – Most in my business will tell you to brand at all costs. I will tell small business to focus on profits, profits and profits. When it comes to transitioning to new media and developing a blended strategy, I let the profits be my compass. Whatever media delivers the most affordable leads from my client’s most profitable niches is going to stay in my client’s plans. If they do not produce, they are gone….
Part two of this series will come tomorrow. However, if you would like to learn more about new media, traditional media and how to develop profitable on and off-line marketing, check out our website:
www.acceleratedadvertising.com
I wish you success in utilizing new media – but don’t throw out profitable advertising vehicles just because they are traditional….
