Right Message. Right Media. Right Time

What's the best way to get your message to your customers? It depends on who your customers are.

The customer must be key to your marketing efforts. Any marketing expert will tell you this, but they won't all tell you HOW. One who will is Dori Bennett, director of sales training for the Allegra Network. Allegra Network is a franchise operation based in Detroit, Mich. One of its franchises is Allegra Marketing Print Mail in Corona, which recently hosted a presentation by her at TAPS Restaurant there.

"You have to get your message out to people in the most effective way," she said. "You need the right message, in the right media, at the right time."

Dori has identified 66 different ways businesses can get their message to their customers, and she gave her insights on some of these. She has been a marketing consultant for some time, with Allegra now, but as an independent practitioner in the past.

The challenge in this day and age is that all consumers are bombarded with marketing messages. Most people now are exposed to about 5,000 messages a day, Dori told us. They notice about 50 of them, and remember less than 10.

So what's the best way? Some good ones are:

Social Media 

Social media is the trendy form of marketing, and with good reason. Many of the 66 ways a business can now market did not exist a decade ago, because they involve the various social media websites and cell phone applications tied to them that many often rely on these days. These devices have changed the way most consumers do business.

Facebook is an especially effective social media site for businesses marketing to consumers. The average person has 242 friends on Facebook, and if he or she likes a marketing message, will share it with these friends. For companies marketing to other businesses, LinkedIn is the best site, as it is the site where more "about business" conversations take place. Blogs are also good for sharing useful information with a company's followers.

However, on any social media site, the business page, profile or blog  needs to be constantly updated with information relevant to the followers, not just information about what they can buy.

Social media, though trendy,  is  not the only way to reach consumers. In fact, especially for customers over 50, marketing via social media may not even be the most effective way - yet. For now, word of mouth is more effective with this age group, and also very effective with younger consumers. At this time, 76 percent of all business is gained through a recommendation.

On the other hand, even in the over-50 age group, the vast majority of customers have smart phones, which means they're capable of getting marketing messages via the apps they have on them.

Websites/Microsites

Even more people have the internet, which means that when they want to buy something, 94 percent of all consumers will conduct online research. This rules out some businesses immediately, either because they don't yet have a website, or because of poor design, they're so low in search engine rankings no one can find them.

Professionally designed websites are extremely important, Dori noted. Professionals can also help you with search engine optimization, and making sure various search engines (such as Google) will bring your business up when customers are looking for a company in your city providing the goods or services you provide. It gets even trickier if you're doing business in multiple cities, which most southern California businesses are.

These days, websites aren't enough. Business owners should also have micro sites, which are optimized for viewing on a cell phone. That's not as simple as  it may seem, because you can't just shrink the website down to a size acceptable to the phone. Also, phones download information more slowly than does a wireless internet provider like Charter. 

I highly recommend hiring professionals to design websites. I designed my own. It comes up quickly on some search engines if I put "Public relations Jurupa Valley." (I'm one of two PR firms in this city, and possibly the only one using the city's name.) But I'm still hard to find if you type "public relations Riverside" or "public relations Riverside County."  Even if you type in my business name, Pen Porter, while you will probably find me on the first page, I'm overshadowed by a brewery in Santa Fe, N.M. that manufactures a beer called Pen Porter.  I would like to be found in cities outside of Jurupa Valley, and outside of Riverside County, so this needs work. I haven't made the investment yet in a professional design, but I intend to do so before the summer is over.

Direct mail

"Direct mail is not dead," says Dori. "Postal mail still gets a lot more attention than email."

In fact, email is less effective now than it was before 2006, says Dori. This is because people are sent  far more emails these days. Spam filters are better, meaning marketing messages often end up in the spam folder. Even if the marketing message goes to the right folder, people tend to scan their emails, only opening those they're most interested in reading. Chances are, it won't be the one you sent. them.

On the other hand, Dori's research has shown that 59 percent of customers enjoy receiving mail about products and services available to them. However, I have also seen research in my university studies indicating something quite different about direct mail - not very many people believe the advertising claims in direct mail brochures are credible.

Trade shows/events

Business to business providers especially benefit from trade shows, but they must pick the right ones. Sponsoring events is another way for a business to promote itself to other businesses.


I of course must add one more marketing strategy Dori Bennett did not mention.

 

PUBLIC RELATIONS!

Every business has stories to tell. Did they hire someone new? Are they offering a new service or product? Did someone win an award? Are they planning a fun or informative event? People will want to know. Journalists know it, and will tell people if they themselves know it.

While no one can force a media outlet to run a story, they usually won't charge for great stories either. That is changing a bit in the magazine realm, and was never 100 percent true for any media outlet. Still, newspapers, broadcast outlets, and news websites prefer to keep advertising and news two separate things. Ad reps and reporters don't usually mingle, but editors news judgement can sometimes can be influenced by ad directors or publishers.

As with the building of websites, it's important to hire a professional for developing public relations, especially if you feel writing is not something at which you're gifted or for which you have time. Public relations companies hire people who love to write! And they'll do it for far less than the cost of paying for ads in even one publication. This is especially true of small start-up public relations companies like mine.

At Pen Porter, all the press releases are written by me (Ellen Porter.) I worked in journalism for almost 20 years,  then handled most of the press release writing for another public relations agency for five years.  As Pen Porter's current clients can attest, I am very good at getting their stories in the Press-Enterprise. Clients here in Jurupa Valley have all had their stories published in the Riverside County Record as well. One client has had radio publicity.

At the agency, since it was in San Bernardino County, I had enough success with the Press-Enterprise that when I started sending them things on my own, the editors and reporters already knew who I was. But I had even greater success up there with the San Bernardino County Sun. For clients living in Fontana and further west, I also had success with the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. Most of San Bernardino County's cities also have small weekly newspapers eager to report about businesses in their community. So does Jurupa Valley, but I wish I could say the same about Corona, Moreno Valley and Norco. When there is a strong Orange County connection, I've been able to get stories in that county's media. (I've tried with a few Pen Porter press releases, but for various reasons, it hasn't happened yet. It will.) Last, but certainly not least, the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles television stations do cover the Inland Empire, and will report on it if the story is strong enough. At the agency, I helped one client get a 1,200 word story on the front page of the Los Angeles Times, and another coverage from all but one of the Los Angeles television stations. This is rare, and exciting, but I'm looking forward to the day soon when the L.A media wants to talk to one of Pen Porter's clients.