Interactive Marketing For Small Business (Followup)
By Kyle McCabe, Natalie and Jillian Anderson | September 11, 2009
Thanks for coming back! We'd really like to hear what you think of this post, so don't be shy with the comments!
Hey everyone, big thanks to those of you who attended our IM seminar over lunch on Wednesday. We had a blast, and hope you enjoyed it and found it helpful. Thanks to the Howard Johnson Inn & Suites in Rapid City for hosting the event.
We’ve embedded the slide deck below for your reference, and also included some key takeaways from what we talked about. As always, if you have any questions leave a comment or get in touch with us in whatever way you prefer. ;)
We’re also going to be posting some more related info in the coming weeks that should help clarify some things we discussed, so stay tuned for that. Go ahead and subscribe if you like, so you don’t have to remember to check back! We are always open to suggestions for new blog posts. If there is something you would like us to write about or if you have any questions, feel free to comment below.
Promotion in the Marketing Mix
- Markets: where buyers and sellers interact for goods, services, and information.
- Marketing: the full management process from concept to customer (businessdictionary.com)
- Promotion within traditional marketing (mediums) and interactive marketing is different in where advertising and promotions are placed: traditional being television, radio, magazines, newspapers, while interactive is online.
- Millions of people still use traditional media on a daily basis and companies would be wise to combine their placement of advertising/marketing with traditional media and online.
- Online is where marketplaces are growing as viewership, listenership, and readership decreases among traditional mediums. Every demographic is online from young to old with interests in every industry. In fact, retirees and baby boomers are the growing demographic online.
Benefits of Interactive Marketing
- The marketing principles are the same – you’re still addressing people with a want/interest/need that you fill and letting them know that you have the solution.
- Five core elements of interactive marketing (web marketing, online marketing, internet marketing, new media – all the same): website/blog, SEO/SEM, banner ads, email, and social media.
- People need to be viewed/approached differently. It’s not all about you. BE HELPFUL. Share what you know and give back to the community. Once you gain people’s trust (and interest), you can start mixing in promotion.
- Networking, fostering relationships and authenticity online shows that you care about the people you do business with and makes people feel good about doing business with you. People buy from people and social interaction gives your company a face and a personality.
- Gain insight and influence. What’s going on out there? What do people want from you?
- Interactive marketing can be used as a sales tool…on many different levels. From blogging and raising awareness, to directly addressing and filling an expressed need.
- Your online audience is very targeted and direct. When you are online and relevant…and optimized, people that want what you have will find you.
- It is important to “connect the dots” for your audience. Take your offline messages to your online audience.
- Finally, interactive marketing is efficient. It does still take time and money if you want to do it right, but what you put into it goes a long way.
- There is truly a lot that interactive marketing can do for your company, I just tried to highlight some main points. In summary, the stronger your company’s online and interactive presence, the stronger its relationships/findability will be, and more likely people will choose you over another option.
How to Use Interactive Marketing
- Listen, listen, listen. This gives you insight into your audience and market, as well as opportunities to engage. Use Google Alerts, Technorati, BoardTracker, and tools like Social Mention. Use regular search engines. Create online polls for your existing customers.
- Have an objective. What do you want to accomplish online? This should be based on your research (listening), and should serve your overall business strategy.
- Form a strategic plan for your online efforts. Makes as many decisions and answer as many questions as you can before you begin: budget, staff, resources, content, presentation, metrics…this will save you time and money in the end.
- Make sure your tactical process serves your strategy, rather than your personal taste. Each technology has a specific purpose, and your business won’t need all of them. Most (but not all) organizations will benefit from use of a blog, Facebook page or Twitter (or all of the above). The best way to learn the technical side is to dive in and start using these tools. Just make sure to start with your objective.
- Evaluate your efforts. You decided in the beginning what you wanted to measure, now assess how you did. What other data did you gather that may give you unexpected insight into the process? If you don’t know what worked and what didn’t work, you’ll have a more difficult time justifying and improving your efforts. So evaluate what you did, refine your objective, and repeat the cycle.
Remember, marketing hasn’t changed. It’s fundamentally the same, whether offline or online. It incorporates both traditional and “new” media into a synchronized relationship, giving you access to your entire audience (they ARE in both spaces), and the power of new technology.
What are you waiting for?
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