I think the power of media and how you present yourself is really an art in itself. I mean if you look at how traditional marketing was many years back and to how it is now it’s almost like it has done a full spin.
You had to do network marketing dealing face to face and giving out business cards and really sell yourself and what you can do with meetings and conferences. Having an advertisement in the yellow pages was also a must.
But how far have we really stepped up with the marketing capabilities that bring us to where we are today?
Well for one the Internet as we all know has been a major break through in communication and how we get our services across and present ourselves, right through to dealing with clients via email instead of writing letters and sending to people in the mail.
Today the internet is a real gateway for the exact same thing but online. But I am still a believer in doing both online and offline and successfully. To be really successful you must do everything. You can’t just half do things in life. You can’t just wear a hat when you go in the sun and not wear sunscreen. You get my point.
Lets take the following as an example:
Business Directory - Also known as the online yellow pages. You can advertise your business now online in a directory the same way you would in a book, and instead of people finding your business by flipping through pages they find your business through searching, but your success is determined by the amount of website traffic the directory gets. Double up your success rate by advertising in offline directories aswell, even if you get 10% of people contacting you than what you would of 15 years ago, it’s better than nothing.
Social Marketing - There are endless amounts of Social Marketing websites just to name a few linkedin, xing, techcrunch, slashdot and many more. which have also been proven to be powerful media sources. Again why not also take this further and socially get involved with sports or activities in your local community or host conferences and exhibit your services through exhibition venues and handing out business cards with your website address will also get the potential clients to do business with you at a later stage.
Affiliate Marketing - Is also a very powerful tool for not only publishers but advertisers as they can gain commissions when referring website users to other sites. There are programs out there that you can specifically advertise in a target niche and offer commissions for referrals to your own site. Double up the impact and offer some commission based referral system on paper or on contract with your sales team or distributors.
Email Marketing - Monthly Newsletters is also a great one, hey but why not also send a thank you card in the mail too, this gives an extra impact.
Articles - Article writing or blogging is content, content is king! Everyone knows that having more interesting pages to your website creates more chances of hits through search engines or in general. Why not double up your content in newspapers or magazines, really get this out there both online and offline. People still love sitting around reading in the sun.
SEO - Ranking in search engines for certain keywords is also gold and should never be under estimated of the traffic potential. If your niche is travel why wouldn’t you want to be on the 1st page of google for the word “travel“. It is also said that people search for your company name before doing business with you. The only way to double your search engine optimization efforts offline or come anywhere close would be the use of “word of mouth”.
Advertising - All types of internet advertising including Banner ads are very effective. Still to this day offline banners also known as signs or signage are another very effective type of media. Radio or TV Advertising are also good when trying to get a visual and point across quickly.
To plain and clearly see the whole point of this exercise and to emphasize what I have written above is to also look at it this way:
Let’s say I want to have my magazine or publication company but also an online version, and I want to have my t-shirt shop, but also on online version. I mean straight way that is double impact. Now lets triple our impact by doing some advertising, and again ramp up our hit and enquiry rate by doing SEO. Now lets give our client some warmth by sending out a thank you card. I mean the potential with mixed media is endless.
If there is any feedback or media that I failed to mention here please feel free to share your comments with me,
