You work for a manufacturing company that has been in business for 75 years. Your marketing predecessors have always relied on direct mail catalogs, fliers and postcards. Although reluctant, upper management have agreed to allow you to create a cheap website. Despite your efforts, sales continue to decline. What do you do?
The old saying “we’ve always done it that way” is not a valid argument in a rapidly changing business environment. Many companies have gone bankrupt with that line of thinking, as new technologies and media transform the ways in which people access information, products, and companies. 75 years ago, people had to wait until the next morning’s newspaper to find out what happened in the world yesterday. Today, news is instant and global thanks to streaming social media. Your customers are adjusting to new technologies and their business needs. Millennials, as the new buyers in the industry, communicate much differently than baby boomers and thus companies need to change their marketing strategies.
My son is 19 years old and has sent over 138,000 Snapchats to his friends. Five years ago, Snapchat didn’t even exist. Millennials are a large demographic that utilize social media. If you want to reach this demographic, you need to use the communication channels that they use. At a minimum, I recommend that you consider having business accounts for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. Depending on your business and target market, you might want to consider Snapchat and other social media networks. Direct mail and email are still effective marketing methods, however in order to expand your branding reach, you need to expand your marketing channels.
I am a big proponent of synchronized marketing, where you establish a comprehensive strategy that has every marketing channel working together in harmony. Direct mail, social media, email, digital, events and PR are seamlessly coordinated into one unified branding message. For example, let’s say you want to announce a new product and promote it with an introductory discount. Here’s what you can do.
- Create a YouTube video announcing the new product and demonstrating its features. The video should link to your ecommerce website with more product details and allow the customer to purchase the product. The discount promo code should also be displayed on the video and on the website.
- Announce the new product via email with a link to your website with the discount promo code and link to the YouTube video demonstration.
- Display the promotion on the home page of your website with a link to the product detail/purchase page.
- Make the the same announcement to your targeted demographic using Facebook and Instagram with links to the YouTube video, product images and the discount which is linked to your product detail/purchase page.
- Do a blog post on LinkedIn and on your blog site announcing the new product and promotion.
- Do a press release with embedded links to your YouTube video, social media and website. Although press releases need to be newsworthy versus promoting product sales, the new product announcement is news.
- Monitor social media and Google searches for your new product and company so you can join the conversation, endorse the product, listen to your customers concerns and address their questions.
- Each marketing channel should link to each other.
Conclusion
In summary, doing the same things you have always done when sales are declining is ineffective in today’s new wave of instant information and communication.
- Try new things – freshen up your marketing
- Monitor what your competitors are doing and decide if you need to do similar things
- Determine the best social media channels for your target customers
- Monitor social media to hear what your customers are saying about you and join the conversation
- Leverage all of your marketing channels and synchronize them into a clear and concise branding message
- Evaluate which channels are effective and which ones are not. Do more of what’s working and stop doing what is not.
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