How to Blend the Best Internet Marketing Strategies

With the plethora of media options available today, from the old-stand-by’s like print and direct mail, to the newest media options like mobile marketing, social media and video, it can be hard to select the right marketing mix for your company’s marketing budget. Here are a few of the Pros and Cons that come with 3 of the more popular media options available today.

Direct Mail

Pros:

1. List Availability. There are literally thousands of lists available to identify a target audience and their characteristics.
2. Accessibility. Because all consumers and businesses have a mail box, you can gain access to them through a direct mail piece.

Cons:

Fairly Expensive After adding up the cost of printing, paper, mailer, lists, and postage, the cost of direct mail exceeds the cost of most digital advertising methods. Just by the nature of direct mail, there are multiple steps required. You can’t respond to the medium itself, but must take the extra step of going online or on the phone to respond to an offer.

Email Marketing

Pros:

1. Highly Targeted. You can offer a sign up page on your website to gain access to emails interested in your industry and collect cards at events and conventions to build email lists.
2. Strong Metrics Capability. Tracking click thru and open rates of your email campaign can be done through most email platforms like Constant Contact or aWeber, allowing for strong response rate metrics. Also, if you tie your email links to a landing page with a conversion tool like a download or “buy now” option, you can track conversions easily.

Cons:

1. Slow List Build. To stay within CAN SPAM ACT guidelines, buying email lists is a no-no, so it could take weeks, even months, to begin building an organic email list or add to your existing target list.
2. Slow Conversion Rates. Due to the massive influx of email that most people get every day, combined with the fact that many people are wary of email marketing and SPAM mail, it may take several (at least 3) sends within an email marketing strategy to start seeing measurable and consistent conversions.

Social Media Marketing

Pros:

1. Inexpensive. Compared to costs of print or email marketing, driving brand awareness or conversions through social media can be significantly less expensive in dollars, although equally or more so in time investments.
2. Trackable. Thanks to sites like bit.ly, creating trackable short links for your social media content shares allows you to see real-time click thru rates for each of your shared links.

Cons:

1. Manual Process. Social Media requires consistent content creation in the form of blogs, articles, press releases, etc.
2. Longer Conversion Cycles. Because you are building relationships and trust with Social Media, the process is not transactional and immediate. Just as in real life, people need to feel comfortable with you before giving a commitment which only happens over time.

The bottom line when you select the marketing mix that works for your business is that it needs to be specific to your budget, your target market, your marketing goals and your timeline. A marketing consultant will have a grasp on the best marketing tools available to your business, so reach out today to find out which combination of marketing tools will increase your ROI in 2012.