With so many choices for marketing these days, are you stuck in analysis paralysis? Are you afraid of choosing the wrong medium to reach the customers you want? It is understandable! Just 5 years ago, social media was not an option, and less than 10 years ago email marketing was in its infancy.
Despair not! At square one, before you even think about what medium to use, what message are you trying to convey and to whom? And this part is easy, right? This is where your strength lies, because no one knows your business like you do. You’ve probably already figured out what you want to tell them, and I bet if you would call to mind your top ten customers, you could rattle off where they live, their age, how much money they make and what interests they have. This is about all you need for square one!
With these things in mind, it is easier to determine what marketing medium to use. Despair not for a second time! Even if you still don’t feel comfortable, armed with this information, you can interview experts in Radio, TV, Newspaper, Direct Mail, Email and Social Media. Furthermore, some marketing mediums won’t even be applicable based on your audience and your message.
For example, let’s say your product is reverse mortgages. 47% of seniors do not have internet at home and 41% don’t use the internet at all. Any form of electronic media marketing might not be putting your best foot forward for this product. Let’s say you are an insurance agent selling products covering all ages. If you had a budget to consistently advertise in a newspaper, the readers of that paper would be seeing you day in and day out, gaining the comfortable feeling that you are going to be around when they need you. And, it is less intrusion in their personal space. In the world of marketing, repetition is KING. Let’s look at one more scenario. A service provider like a heating and air company, can really benefit from marketing to homes of certain age and square footage. Around 12 years after a home is built it is prime time to be thinking about the inevitable replacement of the heating and air unit. Square footage can become a choice of importance if the desire is to obtain large unit sales. In this scenario, using a direct mail company that can create a mail piece for you, and pull a list of owners of residential homes with these characteristics, would allow you to be super targeted.
Speaking of being super targeted, with social media it is nearly impossible to prospect in a targeted way. So for example if you own a restaurant and want to prospect to neighborhoods close by, social media is not your method of choice. If geography is important to your campaign, you can’t really beat flexibility of direct mail.
Marketing is all about trying what works. In 1985 Coca-Cola attempted to change the formula of Coke. Consumers liked the taste, but a force stronger than the taste was at work against this product and marketing strategy. It was the nostalgia for the old drink that won out and Cocoa Cola had much back pedaling to do. Most of us don’t have the marketing budget of Coco-Cola, but you can see that even on a small scale, it is in trying different options that we learn really what our customers like and what makes them tick. I say it is a whole bunch better to try and fail, then not to try at all.
So why not take your first steps and tackle square one above. Then do some research or call your favorite marketer to move on to square two!
