Why Your Business Needs Cross Media Marketing

If you’re in business today you’re probably looking for a way to get new customers or promote to current customers. 

Danny Perez Photography / People Photos / CC BY-NC-ND

 

You probably have a website or a blog showcasing your products. You promote your business in a print ad or on TV or radio. In today’s fast paced world of technology having a blog or a website just isn’t enough to see the traffic that you need to be successful. A simple print ad or TV spot won’t work alone. To drive your business you must take advantage of cross media marketing. Marketing is best used as a strategy. Coordinating your online marketing with your real world marketing will increase results and provide a better ROI.

Why You Need Traditional Media

Traditional media, like print TV or Radio, has been used successfully for years. It has adapted for the digital age. You can now purchase short run marketing materials at low costs. You can add variable data including variable images to target your customers. Say you own a Ski shop and you offer Ski and Snowboard maintenance. Think about sending your Ski customer a postcard with a picture and promo geared to a skier and sending your Snowboard customer a postcard with a picture and promo geared to a snowboarder. You’ll get better results. It is more personalized and more likely to grab their attention. Couple this with a commercial and you’ll have brand recognition.

 

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Mail

So you’re thinking about printing some postcards but aren’t sure about the cost. At 45 cents to mail a First Class postcard there is a real cost to sending out a promo to current or potential customers. Think about this through. When you send out an email it may get ignored, never get opened or worse get caught in a spam filter. Mail, with that 45 cents, guarantees someone must physically look at your promo and actively decide what to do with it. You now have made contact with a potential sale. Especially in today’s digital print world, you have a better chance at converting a potential customer into a real customer with targeting them based on their interest, as noted above.

Why You Need Social Media

Today you’re at a huge disadvantage if you’re not using social media. Social media is a great advertising tool and it also allows you to interact with your customers and clients in ways you couldn’t before. Not using social media risks your business being left behind.

Twitter and Facebook and Google+

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You need social media because it is immensely popular and continues to grow. Using sites such as Twitter will help you keep in constant contact with your customers letting them know what promotions you may have and what is going on. When you share information on these sites it is also shared by your followers. Sharing info helps your business reach people quickly and get new clients needed to be successful.

Facebook and Google+ allow you to create a page about your business. You can use this for business hours, promotional videos, relevant images, and listing your products. People can follow your business and share your info with their friends. Twitter, Facebook and Google+ work as a search engine too helping to get traffic. Using these will also help promote your website and increase its page rank increasing the possibility of getting your potential customers attention.

The Power of Cross Marketing

So it now makes sense, you need tradition media marketing and social media marketing. You must now use them together. Send out a mailer to all your current customers offering them and incentive for returning. Back this up back by also tweeting the offer and a slightly less attractive offer to non-customers. Write a short story about your product and upload pictures or videos to Facebook and Google+. Now you have blanketed your product and increased the chance of action. This is key as maybe they were busy at work when they saw the tweet but when they got home they had a postcard in their mailbox with all the needed info. Throw a radio or TV ad in and you give the sense of well defined and stable business.

Stay Current and Relevant

You need social media in your business to stay current and need traditional media to stay relevant. Technology changes rapidly and you need to use this new technology to entice your customers and to stay up with your competition.  Many people access your business through mobile devices and social media is a big part of the mobile world. If you don’t adapt and use cross media then you’re missing out on a huge amount of potential business opportunities. Yet also in this fast pace world it doesn’t take long before you’re forgotten. Traditional media will help you stay relevant. People will hold onto something physical till they have time to look into it and act upon call to action.

It makes Sense

Using Cross Media Marketing makes sense. You need to use new technology to stay current and use print to stay relevant to reach new customers and keep up with current customers in today’s highly competitive world of business.