Somebody pinch me. I just turned 40 on Friday.
While this disclosure might make my C-level colleagues poke fun at me for still being a kid, and give my young staff members more evidence that I’m getting up there, I find this milestone a strong reminder of how complex it is to reach target audiences with diverse marketing plans. I’m part of the generation that still has the newspaper delivered to the house, but also sees commercials with on-demand television, and I get the pulse of the world on social media. The point is: Getting the attention of consumers today is more complex than ever.
We’re in a multi-platform world.
In one newspaper column, I’m not able to give you all the tricks to get the public’s attention for your product or service. But think of this: How often are you sitting on your couch watching a TV commercial, with a tablet on your lap checking social media, and a smartphone at your side getting a text. That’s information overload, with lots of distractions. So marketing and advertising plans today cannot be one-trick ponies. Once determining the most likely groups to buy your product or service, interface with them through marketing touch points that can be integrated into their lives, particularly as it relates to the habits of your target demographic. By wisely choosing the best advertising mediums, and multiple ones, you can create critical mass with your target audiences.
For example, you might find newspaper, TV ads and other forms of traditional media are excellent top-of-mind and branding marketing vehicles. But at the same time, you can reinforce this branding with online advertising on search engines or social media that demographically and contextually target the consumers you are looking for.
For example, with vehicles like Google AdWords, you can serve ads to web users in geographic areas of importance to you while they search terms relevant to your product or service. If you own an accounting firm and are looking for clients in the Hudson Valley, you can limit your online ads to just the Hudson Valley locale and buy search terms like accountant or CPA. This, coupled with traditional media, can get the attention of the distracted consumer who is using a variety of sources to plug into the world.
Each company’s media plan should be unique. But the context of our multi-platform world demonstrates the need to leverage a variety of marketing vehicles to get the public’s attention.
