ZDO Blog
The "Old Tried and True" isn't working so well this year. Is it? Part 3
In Parts 1 and 2 of this blog, I likened marketing and advertising to your financial investments, and your brand to a rubber tree, the similarities of both being that they need attention, they need feeding and they need to be in the sun—where they can be seen and grow and thrive. The moment you take them out of the sun or stop feeding them, you begin to lose the critical momentum that you spent precious time, effort and money to develop up to this point.
And that’s where I’ll begin Part 3.
I’ve chosen the title of this three-part blog carefully and for a reason. Understand, it’s not to knock the effectiveness of accepted marketing techniques developed over the years and upon which hundreds of thousands of companies have relied to build their respective brands. Those tried and true principles are just that—tried and true. But in this tough economy, sometimes, it takes a new approach to catch the eye of a thrifty public. While I’ve advised marketing directors and brand managers against elimination of their marketing efforts in order to maintain brand awareness and top of mind brand recognition during lean times, I’d like to provide a list of alternative marketing solutions that have been garnering a lot of respect in recent months and which your company—YOU—should consider spending some of your time and efforts and money to develop.
This thing called Social Media is a marketing channel that takes the old tried and true advertising and marketing initiatives from intrusive or interruptive to conversational. Gone are the days of interrupting your surfing with banner ads, although, you’ll see that there are still banner ads out there, and they do still work. But what has appealed to a whole new audience is this Social Media approach that actually has all age groups talking and enquiring and companies converting web hits to customers at an alarming rate.
What does Social Media include? Simply, blogs, video, RSS feeds, podcasts, web 2.0, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, and on and on and on. The couple of avenues I’d like to touch on in the remaining paragraphs of this series are Blogs, Video and Twitter.
Blogs—whether you love them or hate them, you and your company need to be doing them. Why? Because everyone from executive level management at Fortune 500 companies to the kid who babysits your kids is getting their information from blogs. Obviously, then, the blogosphere is where you want your brand talked about. If you need numbers to convince you, technorati.com states that it’s tracking at least 110+ million blogs globally (and what’s more, China has 70+ million blogs not included in the 110+). Your competitors are blogging. So should you be!
Video—ever hear of YouTube? Ever hear of Will it Blend? Watch the iPhone get blended to a thick patch of black smoke in a high-speed kitchen blender. The company’s regular video appearances on YouTube have increased the sales of its blender by 500%!
Twitter—even my friend’s 72 year-old mother has heard of Twitter. And Twitter use grows exponentially each week. In fact, Twitter posted a 1,382% increase in unique visitors in one year! How often do you hear of growth like that? Let people know not only what you are doing but what your company, your brand, your products are doing. Word on the street is that Twitter searching might very soon be as important and as widely used as Google!
While I’ve only elaborated on a couple of our favorite Social Media marketing avenues, I encourage you to read and learn about all of the ways your company can appeal to a broader spectrum of the surfing and internet savvy public, which includes a broader spectrum of ages than conventional advertising initiatives. Further, isn’t it the goal of your marketing efforts to get people to talk about your product, about your brand and about your brand’s integrity? With these Social Media marketing techniques, not only can you get people talking, but you can start and control the conversation.
Bryon D. Zimmerman, CEO
13.04.2009. 12:12
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