I’ll try to keep my marketing geek contained.
Social media marketing is a form of marketing where you can create and share content or offers on social media networks. And unlike traditional marketing such as snail-mail postcards, giant billboards, or TV commercials, social media has leveled the marketing playing field for businesses to offer relevant, timely, and targeted offers to their prospects and customers.
I’ll try to keep my marketing geek contained. But did you catch that?
Social media created a playing field where you can compete for the exact buyer you’re looking for. You don’t need a giant print budget. You don’t need to rent massive billboards hoping the right decision maker is sitting in traffic along I-90. Nope.
But you do need a (free) social media, Business Page.
Do I need to be creative? Do I need to know techy stuff? Do I need a lot of time?
If you own or operate a business, for even five minutes — you by definition are creative. You create something from nothing every day. No art degree required.
If you’re reading this on a desktop, smartphone, or tablet and know how to use the keyboard and camera functions — you, my friend are dangerously techy enough for social media.
Time. Now, this a trickier question. True. You don’t need a lot of time to post to your accounts. But this a marketing endeavor, not a one-and-done free-throw attempt. Like anything in your business (or life), slowing down long enough to create a strategy is what will fling you straight past your competition. Want to get more eyeballs or eardrums to your location or website, press pause, and build a strategy you can stick with.
Remember sliced bread? It’s that good.
Remember TV commercials? Yeah, me neither. My DVR makes it really easy to fast forward right past them. Let me try again.
What about the Yellow Pages and those clunky ads? Man, I’m really showing my age.
How about snail-mail advertisements, these days I walk those from my mailbox straight to my recycle bin. But if see a page of Subway or Burger King coupons sticking out. Guilty. I pull those out right away.
TV commercials, snail-mail coupons, and even the books of goldenrod yellow were all attempts to target my geographic area, my subdivision, my household size, and income level.
Those businesses only learned what worked for me after I used a coupon. A coupon that I often give to my handsome, but won’t remember the coupon husband when he makes a run to the BK Lounge run. You can guess what happens next, right? Yeah. He forgets it.
Now imagine you work for Burger King or Subway.
What if I told you, you could send that same promotion to everyone in the same geographic area, same income, same household size — but you could send it to anyone who likes fast food? That’s what I call targeted marketing.
What if I told you, you can skip the houses who only eat gluten-free and tofurkey. That’s making it relevant to the exact customer who wants (and will) buy from you.
And what if I told you, you could attract more customers to your location on your slowest day of the week. Best part? You’ll spend far less than that print campaign. Talk about timely and cost-effective, right.
With Great Power Comes Great ROI
That’s the power of social media. Some business owners and managers stop cold, right here. I’ve seen it, you’re already swamped with a todo list written in 8 pt font that’s still as long as a city block. It’s easier to stick to what you know then to cram one more thing onto your calendar.
What’s the phrase, With Great Power Comes Great ROI? That’s close enough.
Which really means, if ROI is on the line, that power comes with great responsibility! (See what I did there?). So the real question is, now that you know social media can attract more eyeballs and eardrums to your location or website — how will you implement?
My next post will give you 11 no-fluff, strategy tips to get started today. Sign up for my blogs of straightforward marketing info. I am to give you time-saving hacks, must-have business tools, and of course, social media do’s and please-don’t-ever.
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