Many businesses are cutting expenses in areas such as: sales, marketing, advertising… all areas that may not have a short term payback, but clearly have a long term return. But is this the correct strategy?
The answer may depend on your resources of time and money. It may be a smart move to scale back on the dollars spent in this area, but not the time commitment. In the past year traditional advertising has been in steep decline. Newspaper advertising is down 18.7%, periodicals down 14.8% and radio is down 11.7%. Obviously many others are scaling back in this area. Part of the reason for this is clearly a financial decision, but also they are putting their energy and time in another form of marketing. Many are turning to Web 2.0. Digital advertising is growing rapidly. Online social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube… get over 250 million hits each month.
If you are in retail and selling to the end consumer, you better be all over social media. If you are not, now is the time to be investing time and energy into it. If you are selling business to business, this is clearly where the marketing is going. It requires a lower cash outlay, it relies less on interruption marketing, and has a much better return on investment. It does take time to build relationships and add value online, but no different than more traditional methods.
I am speaking at two different events this week on social networking. I would enjoy hearing from you as to how you and your organization are embracing social media and Web 2.0. Please contact me to let me know.
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=logo}
Comments