Tag: traditional marketing

There are many, many components of new-age marketing. While traditional marketing has not left us, the age of internet marketing has become significant. This book synopsis tells you how.

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More learning: 19 Top Marketing Initiatives We Should Be Discussing

We all need to employ to learn and keep up with the new technology. And focus on how to best combine the old and the new marketing worlds. Doing so will yield the quickest winning campaigns. Let these campaigns drive your future business success.

Book Synopsis

There are three parts and 26 chapters to this book. Throughout the book, the use of the best examples are emphasized for optimal learning by the readers.

The first part addresses traditional marketing techniques. Its focus is on how they are being adapted and then applied in this new environment.

The second part defines the component influencers defining this new world. These include word-of-mouth marketing, customer experience and service, location-based marketing, and concluding with social media marketing.

The third part discusses the new world game changers. These include the smartphone and its role, visual and video marketing, stories and storytelling, content marketing, and new marketing trends. This part concludes with case studies that bring all these components together in an integrated whole.

Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing is a broad category that incorporates many forms of advertising and marketing. It’s the most recognizable marketing, encompassing the advertisements that we see and hear every day. Most traditional marketing strategies fall under one of four categories: print, broadcast, direct mail, and telephone.

While each of these traditional marketing types is not what they once were, they still can be useful. Consider any or all of these traditional marketing methods to complement your marketing efforts.

Two important things to remember in business marketing today are integration and interaction. Don’t abandon something that’s been working for you and your business just because social media is the in strategy.

Integrate your online and offline campaigns, and integrate cohesive online campaigns across social networks to get the most bang for your buck, enhancing all current efforts and maximizing reach in a way never before possible.

There shouldn’t be a debate between ‘traditional marketing’ and ‘digital marketing’ — this is a false choice. Instead, the conversation needs to shift to focus on how the two channels work together, as well as how marketers can leverage the best both channels have to offer.

Component influencers

Word-of-mouth marketing is the best marketing technique, hands down in our opinion.  But is certainly not the easiest, and it takes lots of practice and experimentation to perfect.

Word of mouth is ten times more effective than traditional ads.

Why? Because consumers don’t trust ads–even ads with beloved celebrities. Consumers, I argue, trust their friends. So the best way to understand word of mouth is to understand people in real-life settings.

How many of you consider customer service or customer experience as elements of your marketing? Consider this … if done well, don’t you think both could create things for customers to talk about? And therefore be enablers for the centerpiece of your marketing? Let me share a story with you.

One day I took my sister to our local credit union branch office to take care of three different transactions: getting a credit card reactivated, depositing coins, and ordering checks. The coins required a visit, but the other two transactions could have been done by phone or maybe online. I hoped one visit to a local branch would be easier, but deep down I feared it wouldn’t.

Honestly, I expected we’d be shuttled around the branch to different people to take care of each transaction. Or, worse, told me to use the phone to call the credit card support number directly.

Instead, it turned into a quick and extraordinary experience. Because when we entered the branch, a banker warmly greeted us and asked how he could help. After learning what my sister needed to do, he invited us to sit down at his desk.

He then took care of everything: Called the credit card division of Wells Fargo to activate a credit card, Took the coins to the teller to make the deposit and returned with a receipt, and ordered new checks. I call attention to the fact that the banker didn’t know us or how much money we had to the credit union

So you see how these events represent a great way to market to customers, don’t you? Think I would talk about my experience with my friends and neighbors. Most definitely.

I love finding brilliant social advertising creative that makes me wish I thought of it. And I especially love it, when it’s for a client that’s trying to make the world a better place. That’s what social marketing is all about. And because its only “sell” is to try to get us to change our behaviors or attitudes about something, it can be powerful when done well.

It’s OK to promote your company and products, but do it in a way that capitalizes on your audience’s deepest interests and connects with them on a personal level. Avoid selling.

Here’s the thing, social isn’t just a new way of marketing, it’s a new way of running a business. Social companies certainly have figured this out and are using social marketing to grow their business rapidly.

“Social media” is a way for people to communicate and interact online. While it has been around since the dawn of the World Wide Web, in the last ten years or so we’ve seen a surge in both the number and popularity of social media sites. It’s called social media because users engage with (and around) it in a social context, which can include conversations, commentary, and other user-generated annotations and engagement interactions.

The purpose of you to become more actively involved with social media is to find additional opportunities to connect with customers and share information with them that they enjoy receiving. As a front-line salesperson, or any employee for that matter, this should just be another valuable tool that will help you further accomplish that goal—but it shouldn’t take away from the very important person-to-person contacts that you will continue to make each day.

Stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in. Let your content marketing success be your difference maker. From maximizing quality to increasing your online entry points, eliminating these content marketing mistakes will help build a foundation that will serve your customers, your brand, and — perhaps most importantly — your bottom line.

Game changers  

If it were five years in the future, would you be reading this article or would you be watching it? As online video continues its inimitable rise, it’s an interesting question, isn’t it?

We’ve all heard the saying that “a picture is worth a thousand words” but that is easier said than done for many businesses. The cavemen knew this when they created the first visual stories over 10,000 years ago. It is in our DNA to be able to tell visual stories that convey important pieces of information.

Great storytelling and stories are a very integral part of being persuasive. If you want to persuade your customers and create a memorable experience at the same time, you must master the psychology of storytelling.

Keep reading: What Marketers Need to Know about Personalization Strategies 

Facts often can be boring and overwhelming, can’t they? Stories, though, not nearly as much. They are much easier to understand and much more entertaining. Therefore they are much better at spreading ideas.

Great storytelling and stories are a very integral part of being persuasive. If you want to persuade your customers and create a memorable experience at the same time, you must master this psychology of storytelling ideas. Give them a try today.

Trends are driven by basic consumer needs and desires (like in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), coupled with short-term or long-term cultural shifts, economic undulations, new technology development, politics, or even popular culture. With consumer behavior and preferences changing faster than ever, businesses need to seek to understand regularly and apply consumer and market trends to marketing strategy.

We consistently study the market and consumer trends. For this book, we have categorized them into three groups: social care, time-related, and technology.

Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of this latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he writes about topics that relate to improving the performance of the business. Go to Amazon to obtain a copy of his latest book, Exploring New Age Marketing. It focuses on using the best examples to teach new age marketing … lots to learn. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your clients?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that struggle gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your advertising better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change.  We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

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