According to various reports, everything you’re doing in marketing is out of date. Email marketing? Dead. Blogging? On its way out. Public relations? Why bother. Print advertising? Whew, that’s so 20th century.
And yet…
I still read the New Yorker every week – in its physical magazine format. There are television ads through which I do not fast-forward. Being quoted in the New York Times would still make my heart beat faster. And here in the heart of Silicon Valley, I still see billboards along the highways; Apple has a whole series for the iPad.
I’m not alone in this. Deloitte recently released its 5th annual State of the Media Democracy Survey. Highlights show that print and television advertising are still quite relevant:
- More than 70% of US consumers enjoy reading print magazines, even if the same content is available online.
- Most people prefer to watch their favorite TV shows live, rather than prerecorded on their DVRs or online from sites like Hulu.
- TV advertising is the most influential advertising channel
It goes to show – old marketing channels never truly die. They just lose their ‘buzz factor.’ And, you may have to work harder to get the same results with them.
The report also covers new channels and media taking hold. Social media is influencing purchase decisions, and smartphones are obviously becoming more important than ever.
If your marketing efforts rely solely on more traditional marketing channels, you already know that you need to consider newer options like social media marketing. But you don’t have to abandon older ways of doing things. Use newer channels to magnify the impact of existing marketing efforts, and use your older channels to get more mileage out of new efforts like blogging, Twitter and Facebook.
For example:
- Pitch an interesting blog posting as a contributed article for a relevant publication in your industry.
- Use Twitter and/or paid search to send traffic to published articles in influential media.
- Use Facebook fan pages and Twitter to promote your physical tradeshows or events. And post updates or video interviews from the event to social media sources.
- Take a white paper and turn it into an informative eBook that you give away to blog subscribers.
Do you have any other great ideas of how to do this – particularly in the technology market? I’d love to hear them.
Anne Janzer 
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