“What {insert medias} get the best ROI?”
Having a website that is dynamic, search engine optimized and has layers upon layers of content is not going to drive in business alone. However, having multiple followers on your Twitter, hundreds of fans and mentions on your Facebook and ping backs on your blog post do not line people up to buy your product and services either.
In this new economy. There are no quick fixes.
No longer can any one advertisement be thrown out and bring instant results. The consumer just doesn’t buy on a whim anymore. Why would she buy off of one advertisement?
There are three questions that are essential when assessing your current media mix and advertising planning:
- Does your strategic plan focus on marketing?Marketing and advertising are two separate ways of communicating. Marketing focuses on OFFERING SOLUTIONS to the customer. Advertising focuses on SELLING SOLUTIONS to the customer. Today’s economy requires marketing to the consumer—not advertising to her.
- Does your media mix include digital and traditional medias? Digital medias are rapidly growing and creating more return on investment every single day but it is not an absolute solution. Traditional medias are going away and are not nearly as effective as they have been or ever will be again but they are not dead either. With a strategic plan that focuses on marketing in place your media mix will have to include all the ways that your customer can find out about you that accomplishes the best bang for your buck. One medium and one direction does not bring results—it brings headaches.
- Do you have someone helping you out? Retailers are doing too much in their stores today and now combining these digital and traditional mediums together is going to create even more tasks to implement. It’s time to let someone through the door who is going to help take you where you want to go. With a strategic plan that focuses on marketing and a media mix that includes digital and traditional mediums the time you are going to have to work on marketing planning and execution is going to dwindle because there will be traffic in your store. Finding someone internally at the store or hiring outside services will allow you to do what you do best—sell furniture and loads of it.
A key thought process to ditch while these strategic processes are implemented is that success will not come over night. Hitting the panic button and abandoning ship will lead to consumer confusion about who you are and will make it that much harder to make the transition again.
Which fad are we as an industry going to hold onto?
