By Henry Brown
Marketing has come a long way in the last couple decades. The internet has enabled companies to connect with consumers in creative new ways. In doing so, some traditional marketing strategies have lost their power.
Keeping up with these changes is important – fail to keep up and your company may stop attracting new customers. Here are just a few tips to consider when modernising your marketing strategy.
Forget being first in the phonebook
Hardly anyone uses a phonebook nowadays. Search engines have become the new business directory. Unless your consumer base is largely seniors – some of whom may not use the internet – there’s little reason to splash out on a pride-of-place phonebook ad.
Focus your money and energy instead into climbing the search engine rankings. With the help of an SEO expert, you may be able to secure a place on the first page of Google. This is likely to make a big difference to how much business you attract.
Go easy on print advertising
Print advertising such as business cards, flyers and posters can still attract some customers if you use strategic locations. However, there are drawbacks to print advertising. Firstly, it’s not the most environmentally friendly form of advertising. Secondly, people are a lot less observant nowadays – while passengers in a car may have once notices a billboard, many are now glued to their phones.
Print advertising isn’t dead, but you should have a clear strategy when implementing it. Rather than posting flyers through random people’s doors, put up posters in key places. Make sure to also link print advertising to the digital world by including email addresses or QR codes.
Get on social media
Social media can be a fantastic place to advertise. You can keep existing customers in the loop and attract brand new customers. If you haven’t got social media pages for your business yet, consider setting up pages. It’s free to set up these pages, although you may want to still throw some money at promoted posts and adverts. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are the most popular social media channels.
Embrace video marketing
A couple decades ago, most small businesses would never have considered getting involved in video marketing. This is because the TV was really the only place to share this content (and TV ad slots aren’t cheap).
Nowadays, there are so many other mediums for posting video content. The most popular is YouTube – creating a YouTube channel is free and you can post content at any time. For maximum effectiveness, it’s worth hiring a professional video production company.
Don’t overlook smartphone users
The focus of digital marketing is no longer just on PCs. Instead, it has moved onto smartphones and tablets. There’s a whole array of marketing tactics to consider when targeting people on these devices from apps to SMS marketing. Checking that your website is mobile-friendly could also be important.
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Henry Brown is an online marketing executive. When he isn’t talking shop, he’s roaming the streets of London, uncovering the extra-ordinary in the ordinary.
