By Michael Briggin
Planning for your company’s future certainly can get your head spinning when you have all different kinds of ideas in your head over what to do and what kinds of marketing methods will or won’t work.
How you conduct your marketing strategy doesn’t have to be this way though. Just like screenwriters and writers in general suffer from “writer’s block,” executives can suffer from what we at Tomorrow Future Consulting call “executive’s block” where decision making can be based on more limited information than what is needed to carry out decisions to launch marketing initiatives.
Before you launch your next marketing campaign, it’s important to first study the following so you understand where your business, company or organization fits in as far as your target market:
1) SWOT Analysis – Strengthens, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. What is your organization doing well at, not so well at, what are the options for growth and what’s your biggest roadblock to greater success?
2) What marketing methods have you tried but didn’t get success in? Are you certain these tactics are not working or is it your strategy in executing them that isn’t? There is a difference.
3) What marketing options exist which you haven’t tried? Just because you haven’t done it, doesn’t mean it won’t produce results.
4) What kind of company and industry are you based in? If you’re an architecture or design firm, it’s possible RFPs (request for proposals) will be used on top of other marketing methods. If you’re a tech consumer products startup, it’s a much different affair depending on how you conduct business.
This is where it’s important to understand key distinctions between traditional and digital marketing as both have clear differences:
Traditional Marketing is far more physical in production and requires greater labor in producing the deliverables from the creative as well as the business side of things. It’s also been around far longer than the start of digital marketing, which began with the dot.com era in the 1990’s and continues to today. Any traditional marketing method can be done on film, print, TV, video or even through word of mouth from relationship building (in other words, sales).
Digital marketing is far more online technology oriented and further embedded in how electronics are being produced these days, particularly with mobile and tablet devices being used at an increasing rate with centennials and millennials, the fastest growing age demographics in the consumer market.
Is one type of marketing better than the other? No but ruling one out doesn’t increase your options for revenue. In fact, it limits them.
It is true that in the 21st century we are in an era that is progressively more digital and plans to be that way for a very long time. It’s also true that as automation of the process of marketing becomes more and more a part of day-to-day marketing operations that more organizations are turning to emphasizing digital marketing because of this, particularly as it saves time.
However, there are key things to realize about traditional marketing and digital marketing as mediums which you may not know about if you are exploring options:
Both marketing options are not necessarily cheaper than the other. As digital marketing evolves, the competitive market becomes fiercer and as a result, pricing for digital marketing tools and related options increases. Never assume you can by nature that Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) is a cheaper form of marketing. It and others aren’t by nature, although with email marketing using programs like Constant Contact and Mailchimp the costs are typically much different because the scope of the marketing efforts is more targeted towards warm leads as opposed to cold leads.
Traditional marketing by contrast can present a marketing budget that becomes more bloated in costs and can be a beast to grapple with if you aren’t making the right decisions to focus on such efforts. However, even in-person banner ads and TV spots can still be impactful in ways which email marketing and mobile marketing aren’t. Just ask Jeep as its Super Bowl “Groundhog Day” ad featuring Bill Murray replaying Phil Connors from the original 1992 film was a big smash with Super Bowl audiences:
“In Hollywood circles where everyone has a publicist, an agent, a business manager or some other kind of representative or assistant, Murray flies solo.
Jeep, Bill Murray win USA TODAY’s Ad Meter with hilarious ‘Groundhog Day’ commercial
He doesn’t have a phone, doesn’t have an agent, doesn’t have an email,” Fiat Chrysler Automobiles chief marketing officer Olivier Francois told USA TODAY Sports on Friday. “He allegedly has an 800 number. You leave a message and maybe he’ll call you back.”
This was the challenge that Francois faced when his team first came up with the idea for its 60-second Super Bowl commercial, a brilliant reprise of “Groundhog Day” that finished first in USA TODAY’s Ad Meter, which ranks Super Bowl ads by consumer rating with voters giving each ad a score from 1 to 10.
It’s the first Ad Meter title for the Jeep brand, which had only finished inside the top five once before, in 2013. It also marks the fifth consecutive year in which a first-time winner has finished atop the Ad Meter rankings, which first started in 1989.”
Depending on your company and the message you’re sending, there are ways which banner ads on billboards in your local city or town can spread the word of mouth more quickly than your own website can. Such ads have been placed in the open consumer market for decades and have no plans of dying down anytime soon.
How do you make sense of all the options of marketing that exist? Answer: It’s all about timing and being able to understand society changes before, during and after they occur, not just what goes on in business. So long as any marketing method you use gets responses, nothing will ever truly be dead.
