Are you in New Media Denial?

From Anthony Burke at WSI Digital Marketing

Old Media Marketing and New Media Marketing - How to Blend Old and New

New Media Marketing is a new phrase in the marketing world and it can mean many things to different people. There are many phrases that are being used by different people at different times to describe what they mean.  Some of the most widely used phrases are:

• Inbound marketing
• Internet marketing
• Web marketing
• Social media marketing
• Online marketing
• Digital marketing 
• E-marketing
• Interactive marketing
• Digital Marketing

Here at WSI, we prefer to use the term "digital marketing" to describe what we mean.  So now one question:

Is a marketing strategy that includes blogging, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter still new?  

We are at the end of 2010 not 2008 and things are moving at a truly amazing pace and new media is not so new anymore!  The world economy is being digitised and so are your clients and prospects! However, there are many businesses that are still in new mediadenial. There are still some businesses who think they can ignore new media and believe that old media is still the way to market their products and services.  The result is that they focus all their efforts and budget on the offline advertising techniques that they are familiar with and still use the telephone, print advertising, tradeshows and direct mail as the sole way of marketing their business. It is unlikely that these businesses will continue to trade and posper.  Some weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about a prospect who questioned the need to go online for her new business and is focussing only on offline marketing. Well her business is now open but not doing very well.  She puts it down to the holiday period!

The old media techniques are not useless and they can still be effective but they need to be blended with the new media opportunities and be adapted to the new media experiences of your clients and prospects.  The economy is becoming digitised and so are your customers and prospects.  Let’s look at each of these old media formats and how they can be converted to new media marketing.

Telephone 

Telemarketing is a much maligned marketing technique.  This is usually because it is conducted in very poor manner. The telephone can be used in different ways. So instead of only cold calling for sales prospects, think of some more innovative ways to use the telephone.  For example, call people to conduct a survey on a relevant industry topic.  Invite them to take a survey on the phone or online. If they prefer the online survey get their email address and send them a link to your online survey. Be sure to offer them a free copy of the survey results. Keep them informed by email in the future. Don’t always try to sell anything in this phone call. The person will remember the content experience about your brand and possibly buy from you when he or she is ready. Of course, the best use of the telephone is to call all the leads you develop through your inbound marketing strategy.

Print Advertising

Many businesses advertise in print but have no idea if the ad is working for them.  If you are advertising in a relevant publication, put a clear call to action on the ad and  make this call to action accessible online via a  unique landing page that you can link back to the ad.  This way you can measure it and work out if it is working for you.  Obviously, it is very difficult to manage what you can't measure.   If you have a phone number in the ad, be sure it’s unique so you can measure the results of the ad.  For many businesses, print advertising serves to build or strengthen your brand and sometimes the best result is brand awareness.  However, make sure that the reader can engage your brand online in a way that can be traced back to your ad.

Tradeshows

Tradeshows are still a great way to get your products and services in front of your customers and prospects and they usually offer up a great networking and learning experience.  Some industries work better than others.  There is a great opportunity to blend and integrate your tradeshow marketing with your online strategy in several ways.  For example, if you are exhibiting or even just attending a tradeshow you should always talk about the event online before, during and after the event.  If you use LinkedIn, you can communicate to your connections that you are attending a particular Tradeshow. Make sure that you use your online PR, your blog, Facebook and Twitter channels to discuss your contribution to the event as well as the contribution of others. You can share photos and videos from the event via Flickr and YouTube.  When you meet people at the tradeshow, then make sure that you connect online to keep the relationships going after the event.

Direct Mail

Direct mail is often an overused old media technique but still has value in an integrated marketing plan. Similar to print advertising be sure to have a measurable call to action. Consider linking the call to action to personalized URLs landing pages. This will allow you to measure the results of your direct mail campaigns very clearly with online interaction attributable to your direct mail campaigns.

New Media Transitions

There are many businesses that continue to use old media marketing strategies very well by integrating them with new media channels. In order to get some great sales results you need to integrate your old media and new media plans by connecting and engaging people the way they want to be engaged.  Don't use using old media strategies in a vacuum. Also, avoid using new media tools in a similiar vacuum especially as a megaphone to blast your sales message.  Rather integrate your old media and new media channels into the marketing 2.0 mindset

So your clients and prospects will want to connect with you and your brand to explore what you can do for them via the channels that they want to so it is important to integrate all your marketing efforts - both online and offline.  It is the businesses who adopt the mindset of a content publisher and a relationship collaborator which are the ones whose content marketing strategy delivers the best results. Even old media marketing can convert to new media marketing using an integrated approach.

So are you an old media traditionalist? How are your integrating your old and newmarketing ? Tell your story below.