If you're only marketing your
brand online, you're missing out on a sizable chunk of potential customers.
A recent Pew study found that 73 percent of surveyed
people 18 years of age and older use social media. But entrepreneurs and
business owners should not forget the other 27 percent of people who are not
regular social media users. To effectively reach those customers, one must
integrate social media with old school marketing such as print ads, radio,
billboards and direct mail.
There are still plenty of folks who read the paper
every day or who listen to the radio on the way to work. This presents
opportunities for communicating your brand message to people at a place and
time where they are receptive to hearing about it. Here are a few things to
remember about integrating your brand message across both old school and social
media channels.
1. Some of your
most valuable customers are not fans of social media. Make sure you
allocate ad dollars to old school marketing tools and even quality sales
people. Those non-techy baby boomers want great service when they walk through
the door. They will be your best brand ambassadors when they feel well cared
for. Even though they are not your Facebook friends, remember to reward them
for being your loyal customers.
2. It takes an
average of 10 times for us to remember a brand message. If we hear it more
than 10 times, we’ll start
to get annoyed, but it will take us at least 10 times to remember what we heard
about your brand or company and to do something about it. This is a good reason
to select a few different ways to reach your target audience.
Keep up with your Facebook posts so your customers can
log on at lunch to catch up with you, but augment those efforts with a
newspaper ad or a postcard to thank your loyal customers. Many retailers run
commercials on TV and send postcards in the mail, but also send email reminders
about sales. Every single postcard and TV ad pushes customers one step closer
to the sales rack.
3. We like to
hear the same message, but in different ways. The average consumer spends
just over five hours daily on digital media, four-and-a-half hours on TV,
one-and-a-half hours on radio, 32 minutes on print media and 20 minutes on “other” types of media, according to a recent study. This
shows that there are many different ways we consumers get our information over
the course of a day, which gives brands a variety of different ways to reach
consumers.
Even though we are increasing the amount of time we
are devoting to digital media, we are still spending an equivalent amount of
time on old school media. Don’t forget
to talk to your consumers there, too. Fast food restaurants are great at using
different ways to catch us when we are hungry with mediums such as billboards.
Consistency is key. No matter where you take your
message, new media or old, make sure that your customers know it is you. They
won’t mind hearing from you in more than one
space. While marketers are ‘reinventing
the wheel,’ savvy entrepreneurs will understand that
the old wheel does still serve a purpose.
From Entrepreneur
By Karen Mishra
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