Anyone who is in business knows that it isn’t always easy to convert social media fans and followers into actual clients. Sometimes, it is a lot less difficult to acquire fans and followers than to turn them into clients.

The degree of difficulty

It seems as though the degree of difficulty is not the same with every industry or niche. Depending on which products and/or services you are selling will determine how difficult it is to convert your people into paying customers. If you are offering a product or service that people feel they need (it is a necessity, not a luxury), you will have an easier time of converting them and of selling more. If, on the other hand, your offerings are deemed less of a necessity by the people doing the buying, you will have a more difficult time of selling. In each case, you should develop (or have developed for you) a strong and effective web presence. You need to give your fans and followers a chance to get to know them and for them to get to know you. Only after you have successfully built a relationship together with a solid foundation will you be successful at turning them into clients.

There are many people who have developed relationships and have gained customers solely through their online connections. It is critical that you share valuable content,  have meaningful online connections, are sincere in your efforts to help other people. Once they see that your goal is to help them and not to help yourself, the relationship will flourish because they will begin to trust you and to have confidence in  your credibility. People (in general) love to be offered content that allows them to learn new information on a regular basis. The more value that you are able to give other people, the more they will appreciate who you are and what you have to offer. As some point in the relationship, your fans and followers will pursue a conversation with you that involves buying something from you.

Compel them to return to you over and over again

If you can get people to keep coming back to you, they will eventually become loyal customers. Loyal fans and followers = loyal customers. You should bear in mind that it will most likely take people more than one or two interactions before they decide to buy something from you. It will probably take them seven, eight, or even more interactions. You need to be patient and allow them to do it in their own time. The most effective way to make them feel comfortable is to continue to draw them into your discussions and make them feel that they are an important part of the conversation. You need to make them feel that their opinions matter to you. It has been proven,over and over again, that many positive things come out of social networking and online social interactions. It is very important that you use the right tools effectively. If you do, you will experience a great deal of success for your business.

Persistence and consistency

One of the two most important ingredients when it comes to converting fans and followers into clients are persistence and consistency. You need to interact often, make sure that you post content a consistent number of times (and on specific days), and continue to communicate with other people as often as they communicate with you. It is extremely important to make sure that your fans and followers understand how much value you hold and how important your contributions are to them professionally. Once you have established relationships with people with whom your connection started online, there will be a time when you should get to know them face to face. Both types of interactions are extremely important and both are necessary for a successful relationship overall.

The quality of your content

I am sure that you have heard the expression “Content Is King.” That is absolutely correct. Without your content, you have nothing. Because of the fact that the success of social media is based on successful relationships, your content must really be of the highest quality possible. You are relating to people through your content and what you write will make them decide whether they want to continue to build a relationship with you. It has to be as perfect as possible.

Conclusion

Turning fans and followers into loyal clients seems like a daunting task as a whole. However, when you approach it methodically and deal with one step at a time, you can succeed at building relationships with people, getting them to trust you and to believe in your credibility and trustworthiness, and to truly want to do business with you and to be loyal clients for many years to come. If you put the right list of ingredients together in order to become truly successful, you will see that your efforts will pay off and will keep paying off. Make sure that whatever you offer to other people, they are benefitting in some way. You want to try to make sure that when they need what you are offering, you are the first one to come to mind.

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You are used to traditional marketing but people are talking about inbound marketing. With traditional marketing, you pursue your customers. With inbound marketing, you get your customers to come to you. Because they come to you willingly, they are prequalified.

Traditional marketing versus inbound marketing

Traditional marketing: Because of the way in which traditional marketing is set up, it covers impressions and interruptions. That means that everything is covered: advertising space, air time, mailing lists, etc. The concept is that you spend as much money as possible to make sure that you beat out your competition.

Inbound marketing: At the heart of inbound marketing is content and relationships. Inbound marketing allows everyone to succeed in business and based on the principle of persistence, consistency, creativity, and interaction. With inbound marketing, you don’t need to make a huge financial investment in order to make it succeed. You do, of course, have to make an investment but it is an investment of time, effort, and consistent publication and syndication. Because inbound marketing is relatively new, it is still evolving and changing, although the general principles have been established for a while.

When you are thinking about your social media strategy using inbound marketing, there are several steps that you should follow.

1. Establish your brand and make sure that you are able to differentiate it from other brands on the market
2. Build (or have built) a web presence that is content centric
3. Try and consider the “big picture” as much as possible. If you can, try to imagine how it will impact everyone, not just your particular target audience
4. Have established goals and objectives in mind when you first begin to implement your marketing strategy. The more successful you marketing strategy is, the more successful your business will be on the whole
5. Keep a specific budget in mind for your online marketing strategy
6. Set milestones and timelines and specific responsibilities and action items
7. Use one or more the analytics tools to have a constant understanding of how well your online marketing efforts are doing

In addition to taking the initial steps to set up your online marketing strategy, there are several steps that you should take to maintain your strategy over time.

• Project a marketing strategy over the next year for your brand, content, search capabilities, and web presence
• Chart your business’s activities, including task lists, tactics, timelines, and allotments of time and money
• Examination of keywords and key phrases to make sure that you are using the most effective ones for your target audience
• A calendar that includes budgets, timing for blog articles, case studies, eBooks, white papers, videos, and webinars
• Dashboard for social media activities, including groups, forums, blogs, and online networks
• A database for opportunities to deliver presentations to people (face to face)

Conclusion

Inbound marketing is an extremely powerful and effective marketing approach that is driving the success of many different businesses around the world today.  If you feel that your business will benefit from this particular marketing approach, you should learn as much as possible about how to use it most effectively and efficiently for your particular business. Because inbound marketing has not been around nearly as long as traditional marketing, many people are skeptical about putting in the effort for something that may or may not work (in their minds). You will see that it is totally worth the effort.  It is important to continue to be flexible and to keep an open mind when it comes to building your business. Remember that you will be getting your customers to come to you willingly and eagerly. What could be better than that for your business?

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The content that you share online is informative, educational, and valuable. However, it can also come from a marketing angle. Although your interactions with other people through social media are all about building relationships, ultimately, people will buy from you.

Nowadays, there are several different ways in which you can reach other people. Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are three of the most popular social media channels. On Facebook, you can write as much as you like, although other people would probably prefer shorter (rather than longer) messages. LinkedIn has a lot of possibilities when it comes to sharing content as well. In this case, the relationships that are shared are business oriented. With Twitter, the messages must be short (140-character maximum). However, that doesn’t mean that they can’t have a subtle promotional spin to them. There are several effective approaches that you can take in order to write effective marketing content and tweets. Your success depends on not only using Twitter but also writing well. The quality and the precision of the writing should be quite specific.

• The system that you use for this particular type of communication is social networking and shared messaging
• Communication is your medium
• The  form of language is language itself
• Your content should speak about branding and marketing
• Your interaction is the call-to-action that you choose to give to the person with whom you are interacting

Promotional copy

Promotional copy is very different than it is when it is in print. The way to make promotional copy successful through social media is by sharing a great deal of it and sharing it very often. By doing that, you are doing several things at the same time. You are increasing your reputation. You are building your credibility. You are positioning yourself as a subject-matter expert (SME). And you are building your credibility and trustworthiness. These are all ingredients without which you have no chance at success. There is a viral element that comes with all of this. The more your word is spread by others, the more popular your ideas will be and the more people will pay attention to you. They will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, who will tell their friends, etc. The success of your business is very dependent on word of mouth. In that way, it differs greatly from other forms of promotion. With social media, you rely on other people’s willingness to engage with each other and their willingness to share your information with others.

Promotional copy and social media

Your content and tweets must reflect the way that people communicate and interact through social media. In this case, the relationship that you are trying to promote is between prospective clients and your brand. If you succeed at having people form those relationships, you will succeed at getting those people to buy what you are selling. Of course, social media is an extremely personal medium and the messages that you are giving to others uses the various social media channels as their vehicle. The delivery of the communication is direct and instantaneous. The way that you make your offerings appealing to other people is through words. You create images and ideas through your words.

Conclusion

Writing content and tweets that market your offerings will give you a great deal of mileage. You should think about it as an extended form of speech. The success of your content depends totally on how creative and how vivid you are able to make your ideas. You can design your content in whichever way you feel works as long as your promotion is subtle and in good taste. Just remember that above all, it needs to be informative, valuable, and educational. Most importantly, it needs to solve the problems of the people with whom you are interacting.

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Inbound Marketing is a term that you have heard many times over the last few years. Basically, Inbound Marketing is the opposite of traditional marketing. Instead of going after your prospective clients, you get them to come to you.

In addition to the marketing approaches being different, there is one advantage that Inbound Marketing has over traditional marketing (or Outbound Marketing). The customers who come to you have already been prequalified because they have to “opt-in” in order to get to you. Opting-in means that the prospective clients have made a conscious choice to connect with you online.  The basic principle of Inbound Marketing is the same as all aspects of online interactions. It is about relationships. As always, it is never about the hard sell. Your focus should always be on their wants and needs. You must figure out how you are going to solve their problems.

There are many different types of Inbound Marketing. Each is effective and important in its own way.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the method of making various changes in different parts of your website and web presence so that the search engines will find you when someone is doing an online search. The reason that you want the search engines to find you is so that they can bring your target audience to you. The way that you get the search engines to notice your web presence is by using effective keywords and key phrases. The only way that the details of your web presence will show up in the search engines is if what you  have matches what someone else is looking for. In this case, you are getting your target audience to look for you rather than the other way around.

Social media

Let’s face it. People hate to be “sold.” They don’t like that from anyone. If they are interested in a particular product and/or service, they can choose to receive alerts (targeted messages) with information about those products and/or services through social media. It is very easy for them to connect with a company or become a fan of that company through numerous social media channels, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Aside from those mentioned, there are many niche social media channels with which people can connect to enable them to receive information easily. Social media puts the power into the customers hands. If they want to follow a brand or company, they can choose to do so. If, on the other hand, they choose not to be connected to a specific brand or company, they can do that also. It certainly behooves the company to do everything in their power to make the customer want to connect and to stay connected.

Blogging

A critical part of Inbound Marketing has to do with content. The more top-quality content that is written and shared, the more likely your Inbound Marketing campaign will succeed. The more content you expose other people to, the more you will build your own credibility. As you offer more and more compelling and valuable content in your niche, the more people will regard you as a subject matter expert and the more they will turn to you when they need information. Bloggers fulfill this need very well. Blog articles don’t impose on people. The content is merely available for anyone who would like to take advantage of it. The decision to visit a particular blog rests solely on the shoulders of the reader. The reason that they choose to read a particular blog is because they find it valuable and are able to apply the information to their own situation in some way.

Conclusion

Inbound Marketing is a critical element when it comes to the success of your marketing campaign and to your business in general. People will not be more inclined to buy something from someone else if they are constantly being imposed upon and interrupted. If, on the other hand, you offer people valuable information without asking for anything in return, they will continue to connect with you indefinitely. You always must remember that your customers’ needs come before those of  you and your business. With that in mind; however, it is very important to remember that you should not forsake traditional marketing for Inbound Marketing. You need to include both of them in your campaign. Together, they will make your business a force to be reckoned with!

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Success takes time. Social media is an ongoing effort that requires a lot of meticulous planning and a sustained effort toward the predetermined objectives. The rules of such campaign are not defined and hence, some of the possible and effective strategies that can be made for a social media campaign.

The following are some of the possible approaches that you might want to take:

• Find a suitable and befitting social media channel that can complement the image of your brand. The channel should be able to understand the value of the product or the services that is being promoted using the medium.

• Plan and choose the team that can build the brand image. It is imperative that the professionals working on this project have the required skill sets and believe in the product’s brand power. Right from the PR agents or the staff members, the team has to be chosen carefully.

• Make content the king. As an important part of the social media campaign, the content should focus on promotion of the benefits of the products and not be offensive or outrageous.

• Carefully target the online users. Do your homework well and try to find out as much as possible about your targeted online users and then promote the brand to the users who use it more frequently. The promotion campaign can be altered per the audience and, subsequently, necessary actions can be  taken.

• Be aware of the brand scrutiny. Once the brand has being introduced to the market, the concerned team should be well aware of the pros and cons of the steps they have taken for its promotion. Hence, keep your eye on the conversations, posts, chats, or even the forums taking place with respect to the product.

• Always be as original as possible. Use of social media channels as a method to promote the product has to be done carefully and in an original way. Use the possible benefits and reward system process for the marketing of the product in a better way.

• Constantly measure the performance of efforts being put in to make sure these are in sync with the goals. It is only when the goals are achieved and return on investment (ROI) expanded that it can be estimated that the campaign was a success.

The following are some of the most famous social media campaigns of all times:

• Threadless building brand love was an example of the widespread coverage of the brand on the social media channels.

• Dunkin Donut’s new product campaign on Facebook.

• Promotion of new Fiesta by Ford. The campaign saw use of social media to correctly target the audience in a very impressive manner.

• Promotion of Xperia X1 by Sony Ericsson.

• The unique formulation of the sea World’s Whale social media campaign is the best example of intelligent social media marketing. It demonstrated that a marketing campaign can be made successful even out of the realms of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
  These and many more successful marketing campaigns are the example of how social media strategies can be made use of to the best of their ability.

Conclusion

Social media campaigns must be designed to derive continuous engagement from the users and should also have beneficial results for the sales department. Smart allocation of resources can ensure better ROI in the event that your social media campaign is successful. Setting up short term goals and constant revisions should be the right approach to the whole strategy.

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There is no shortcut to success. Social media is a continual effort that requires a lot of meticulous planning and a consistent effort toward the established objectives. Some of the effective strategies that can be made for social media campaign are as follows.

Choosing the best social media channel: You need to find a suitable channel that can complement the image of your brand. The channel should match the value of the product or the services that are being promoted using the medium.

Choosing the right team to build the brand image: Plan and choose the team that can build the brand image the most effectively. It is imperative that the professionals working on this project have the required skill sets and believe in the product’s brand power. From the public relations agents or the staff members on down, the team has to be chosen carefully.

• Content is King: As a critical part of the social media campaign, the content should concentrate on the promotion of the benefits of the products and never be offensive or outrageous.

• Target online connections: You need to choose your online users very discriminatingly. Search your targeted online users carefully and then promote the brand to the users who are the most involved with the brand. The marketing campaign can be customized for the audience and necessary actions can be taken subsequently.

• Brand scrutiny: Be aware of brand scrutiny.Once the brand has been introduced to the market, the team should be well aware of the pros and cons of the steps they have taken for its promotion. Pay close attention to the conversations, posts, chats, and forums taking place with respect to the brand.

• Be unique and original: Use of social media channels to promote the product as much as possible. This must be done carefully and in an original way. Use the possible benefits and rewards system to market of the product in a better way.

• Concentrate on metrics: Constantly measure the performance of efforts being made to ensure that these are in sync with the goals. It is only when the goals are achieved and return on investment (ROI) is expanded that it can be surmised that the campaign was a success. Some of the most famous social media campaigns of all time are as mentioned below:

  • Threadless building brand love was an example of the widespread coverage of the brand on the social media channels.

  • Dunkin Donut’s new product campaign on Facebook.

  • Promotion of new Fiesta by Ford. The campaign used social media to correctly target the audience in a very impressive manner.

  • Promotion of Xperia X1 by Sony Ericsson.

  • The unique formulation of the sea World’s Whale social media campaign is the best example of intelligent social media marketing. It demonstrated that a marketing campaign can be made successful even out of the realm of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Conclusion

These and many other successful marketing campaigns are examples of how social media strategies can be used to the best of their ability.
Social media campaigns must be designed to derive continuous engagement from the users and should also have beneficial results for the sales department. Smart allocation of resources can ensure better ROI in the event that your social media campaign is successful. Setting up short-term goals and constant revisions should be the right approach to the whole strategy.

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There are many social media trends that have been introduced lately that are well worth considering for your business. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the standard social media practices that you have been using so far should be abandoned.

Some of the trends that will be presented here will work effectively for your business and some will not fit in to what you are doing.

Marketing that is based on a specific location

Location services are growing more and more popular all of the time. Many people are comfortable with the idea of “checking in” and the more prevalent this becomes, the more sophisticated safety features you will see emerging. Privacy options such as those that can block your location from public view will become increasingly common as well as features that are connected to your branding. If you haven’t become familiar with websites such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places, it is time to do so. Those websites will enable you to focus on your target audience’s likes, dislikes, and interests more accurately. The way in which you will be able to accomplish this is by offering promotions, discounts and/or giveaways when they check in to your business.

Text messaging campaigns

There is a growing capability and desire of small businesses to move their marketing campaigns to mobile devices. There are companies (such as MessageBuzz) that offers different levels of service and free trial accounts, which will allow you to try out a mobile-marketing campaign. You should begin by adding a mobile widget to your website, which will gather mobile numbers automatically and will create campaigns that are for specific regions or area codes.

Video platforms

There are several video platforms that concentrate on business and that make it easy to market videos. Websites such as Vimeo, Viddler and Dailymotion are starting to become more and more popular and focus on live streams, such as interactive broadcasts or streaming directly from blogs.

Tweet-a-thons

A Tweet-a-thon is a fundraising event on Twitter where people on Twitter get their followers to tweet about a specific charitable cause for a specific period of time. This is a very effective way to help a worthy cause in addition to strengthening the relationships that you have through social media interaction. The best approach when it comes to a Tweet-a-thon is the simplest approach. If too many details are introduced, it may make things complicated.

Open-source publishing

Open-source publishing, such as WordPress, is extremely popular nowadays. The reason for this is that WordPress makes it simple for websites to execute search engine optimization (SEO) with very little financial investment using plugins. If your website is not currently on a WordPress platform, it is an excellent idea to move it to one. The platforms are easy to use and do not require a great deal of coding.

Higher bandwidth

Acquiring a higher bandwidth is becoming more and more necessary, both from the perspective of your business as well as from the perspective of your clients. The higher bandwidth allows you to share your message more quickly with less downloading time. The sooner you increase your bandwidth, the better it will be for your business.

Monitoring discussions

You should demonstrate to your clients that you are paying attention to what they are saying and that you feel that it is important to respond to them. There are several approaches that you can take, including social media dashboards, and keyword-alert services. You will be able to monitor the discussions and participate as well.

Review websites

There are websites that are specifically dedicated to reviews from customers. The people need to be heard. When they have an issue, they want a solution. There are review websites that will consolidate common issues that have been submitted into a concise communication. Negative and positive feedback are both important for the success of your business. They both help you to grow and improve regularly.

Hunting for deals

There are many websites that offer valuable deals for little or no money. This has gained a great deal of momentum and is very popular now. Your clients will be happy and in return, you will be getting them to be loyal to you and your brand.

Platforms for presentation

Interactive web platforms are becoming more and more attractive. Many of the newer platforms offer easy-to-build presentation tools with social media, video and live feeds. It is very important for people who connect online to be able to see the presenter, not just listen to a voice. Choose the presentation platform that works best for your business.

Measuring results of social media

Having a good handle on your social media metrics is extremely important for the success of your business. People will want to hear the results. More and more ways to measure the results of social media will become available.

Conclusion

The social media trends that have been discussed here are all of great value; however, they may not all be right for your business. You should consider them all and then make an informed decision about which ones you would like to use. One thing that is for certain is that whichever ones you choose will only enhance what you have now and help you to achieve greater success for your business.

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Flip.to is a social media platform that uses “magnetic marketing” to attract customers. The platform helps businesses to establish all-encompassing, effective, reliable marketing campaigns by engaging guests and the social media channels that they rely on.

Magnetic marketing is the time when the customer and the brand are brought together, at the appropriate time, without either side needing to take an aggressive action.

Flip.to encourages people to spread the word about their business to their social media connections and to entice the business's employees to getting involved in their social media marketing campaign. When a business's employees are motivated, they are great contributors to the creation of an extremely positive buzz campaign. In effect, they become an extension of the business's sales force. The engagement generally takes place in the same fashion that other information is communicated. Most commonly, through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The advantages of Flip.to

Flip.to is very easy to use. If you are using it in the hospitality industry, It plugs into the booking engine, which will incentivize guests to share information about their upcoming trip with their friends and family members immediately after they have made the arrangements. They don’t even need to leave the website of the hotel. There are several interesting and useful features that flip.to offers. Flip.to in the travel and hospitality industries is one example of how it is used. There are many other uses as well.

• Personalized landing pages: If a friend of a guest clicks on the guest’s link, they will immediately be directed to the hotel, restaurant, or airline website, which has been personalized. Flip.to is instrumental in engaging them and many of those people eventually become guests themselves.
    
• Customizable: Flip.to is the tool that is used and customized by various institutions. The look that is presented to people searching the given hotel, restaurant, or airline can totally be customized for the institution’s needs. For example, messages can be set to be syndicated and incentives for why a prospective guest should become an actual guest can be communicated.  
   
• Milestones: When a person reaches a goal through flip.to (for example, sharing something about a particular hotel on Facebook), a unique voucher will be Emailed directly to that person. The vouchers are printable and can also be viewed on a mobile device. The process for redeeming the voucher is built right into the voucher itself.  
   
• Analytics: The business can track precisely what is happening and who is speaking about them, what they are saying and how much traffic is being generated. Top-line analytics as well as more detailed reports are at the business’s fingertips.  
   
• Getting set up: If you are interested in getting connected to flip.to, it is very simple. One line of code needs to be added to your booking engine (which is similar to Google Analytics). 

There are other tools that work on similar principles, such as Zuberance, gigya, izea, and Foursquare (to some extent).

• Zuberance: Zuberance works with other companies to capture the power of word-of-mouth and social media to boost measurable successes and increase sales eventually.  
   
• gigya:  gigya integrates online businesses with the most popular social media channels, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Customers are able to take friend and profile data to drive social registrations, word-of-mouth marketing and interactions with their communities. Everything that gigya does is optimized through analytics, consulting, support and best practices.  
   
• izea: izea connects social media publishers with advertisers through their platforms. The company works with social media sponsorships.

Conclusion Our this world of ever-changing and advanced technology, more and more interesting and clever tools are being offered that help business owners to become greater and greater successes. The concept of Flip.to is an amazing one for the travel, hospitality and food industries. The product can potentially generate a tremendous amount of online traffic and those people who are connecting online will eventually become loyal clients. For more information, check out Flip.to.

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As important as social media is to the success of your business, using it, even to its fullest potential, should never be at the expense of traditional media. They must work together to allow your business to flourish properly.

If you are a business person who understands the importance of integrating the two types of media to get maximum results, you are doing all of the correct things for your business. On the other hand, if you are not so sure of that importance, you might ask how you can integrate all of the social media with your traditional marketing and public relations strategy.

The fact is that social media has become an extremely important part of how businesses market their brand and their products. Technology offers so much at this point that marketers are no longer satisfied with only understanding how to use Facebook and Twitter. They now want to understand how to integrate social media with traditional media into their advertising, public relations and direct marketing campaigns. Of course, traditional media carries with it a great deal of credibility and although it may not create the same kind of buzz that social media creates, it is a very important contributor to the success of business. There are subtle ways in which social media and traditional media meet without your having put them together consciously. For example, anytime you have your business’s logo on an online advertisement for your business, you are seeing that coupling.

In order to succeed with this approach, your mind needs to wrap itself around coming up with ways of thinking about integrating social media, traditional media, and digital media. It is more about the framework than it is about the process. If someone builds you the framework for using social and traditional media for the full advantage of your business, you can apply that over and over again. Once you have the established structure, you will be able to do it on your own as many times as you need to.

• Truth: It is a known fact that consumers trust the opinions and recommendations of other consumers much more than they trust the business owners. That is the main reason why social media produces such successful results for businesses. People speak to each other. The trust that consumers have for business owners takes time but it will happen eventually.
   
• Yin and yang: If you were to imagine any symbol when it comes to the integration of social and traditional media, the symbol that expresses the relationship most clearly is yin and yang. The two parts (or types of media in this case) can exist separately. However, in order to truly work as a complete concept, the need to work together. Together, they complete the picture.
   
• Mutual benefit: When you use social and traditional media together, they feed off of each other and are mutually beneficial. Together, they create a much stronger and much more effective and successful marketing campaign. They complement each other so well and each makes up for whatever is lacking. They complete each other.

There are several points that you need to ponder before you, as a business owner, build your social and traditional integration framework and start to work with the two forms of media. The questions are:

• Your goals: What is your business goal and what is your communications goal?
   
• Who is your target market? Before you start, you need to be very sure who your target market is. It is recommended that you don’t only concentrate on demographics. If possible, try to identify with your target market on a more personal level. Try to find out what they look like, how they sound, who their friends are and why they are interested in your product.
   
• Where is your target market? This does not just mean where they are physically. It also refers to what point they are at in their lives. If you can come up with that answer, you will have the ability to connect with your audience on a much more personal and meaningful level.
   
• Connecting with your target market: You need to figure out how to touch them in a way that makes them want to stay connected to you.
   
• Interacting with your target market: Once you have established contact, you need to figure out how to make them stay connected to you. The more you interact with them, the stronger your relationship will become.
   
• Getting your target market to share you with their friends: Once you have established a strong relationship with the members of your target market, they will start to trust you. Once they trust you, they will want to share you and your offerings with people whom they care about. You will see that the success will really start to boom after this has happened.

Conclusion

When you integrate social and traditional media, you are giving a great deal more strength to your campaign than if you had a single-layer marketing campaign. Integrating adds another dimension and you will see that the success of your business critically depends on that integration.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team and don’t forget to “like” our Facebook page.

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1. Is Traditional Advertising Obsolete?
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With the advent of social media and inbound marketing, there seems to be a trend toward online advertising and away from certain types of traditional advertising. There are certain types of advertising that are used less and less lately.

There are many possible reasons for this, among them being cost. Traditional advertising costs money. Lots of money. Inbound marketing, which is a marketing method that brings your customers to you, costs very little, if any, money. With the rapid development of technology, the world of sales, marketing and advertising is being drastically affected. One of the main reasons that certain forms of traditional marketing are fading into the distance is that with traditional marketing, it is very difficult to track the metrics, whereas, with online advertising, it is very easy to track the metrics (with such tools as Google Analytics).

Another sharp contrast between traditional advertising and online advertising is that you are not able to focus your advertising efforts so precisely with traditional advertising. With online advertising, you can pinpoint your specific niche and your specific potential customers and existing customers. You have absolutely no wasted efforts.

If you examine the way in which companies acquired leads a decade ago, you will see that it is very different from the way in which companies acquire leads today. With the competition being as stiff as it is, as a business, you really need to have a hook in order to succeed. Your hook has to be unique and effective and it has to be yours alone. One thing that is for certain is the concept that before you can even entertain the possibility of selling any product or service, you need to work long and hard on interacting with people and with building strong and meaningful business relationships with your business associates.

Modern marketing

Marketing today is very different than the marketing of the past. In traditional marketing, the company that had the money to buy more leads and potential customers won the business. With online marketing, money is not really relevant. What is relevant is time and effort and forming and maintaining relationships that have trust as a foundation and mutual respect.

There are some types of traditional advertising, types that have been in existence for a very long time, that seem to be fading to the background and there is a good possibility that they may become obsolete in the next several years.

• Newspapers: Newspaper advertising has been a time-honored tradition for so long. It is certainly an institution. More and more businesses are no longer using newspapers to advertise their brand and offerings. The idea that a business would have to spend many thousands of dollars on one advertisement that will only appear for one day seems absurd when compared with online advertising.
   
• Local radio: Radio stations, per se, will not disappear. However, the small, local radio stations are struggling more and more to stay afloat. The concept of a local radio station selling a 30- or 60-second advertising spot to a business and that the business must run the spot for 6 months in order to see any positive results seems kind of crazy. Radio advertising is short-term advertising. Considering the extreme effectiveness of online advertising, radio advertising really can’t compare. The reason that inbound marketing is so effective compared with traditional advertising is that with inbound marketing, people can’t do anything to block your advertising methods. In fact, they make conscious decisions to opt in. With traditional advertising, people have gotten very clever. They can block ads at will.
   
• The Yellow Pages: The Yellow Pages is no longer an effective form of advertising, in many cases. Many people receive the Yellow Pages and never give it a second look. Maybe they use it to even out the table legs or the stick it on the bookshelf and it quickly gathers dust. Why would people use the Yellow Pages when it is much faster and easier to search online for the same information? And the print online is so much larger!
   
• Direct mail: Direct mailings find their way into the garbage much more readily than anywhere else in a person’s home. Direct mail is expensive and often, people don’t pay any attention to it.
   
• Home shows: You pay a great deal for a home show. After your business has shelled out so much money, you don’t generally get a good return on investment. Home shows are not all that convenient. Many people prefer to find out about new products, services, etc, online than having to pay an entrance fee to the home show and walk around aimlessly for hours.

Conclusion

As sad as it is to think about, some forms of traditional advertising are truly becoming obsolete. That is not to say that all forms of traditional advertising are dying or that they are not very valuable. In fact, online advertising works most effectively when it is paired with traditional advertising. Online advertising enhances your offerings very effectively and traditional advertising enhances your offerings in other ways. As a business owner, you should not forsake one form of advertising for the other. You should use them for your business as complements of each other.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team.

You might also like:

1. The Impact of Social Media on Advertising
2. Successful Marketing Messages for Your Business
3. Cold Calling Redefined by Social Media