Social Media Marketing vs Traditional Marketing

This video from Lessing-Flynn demonstrates the shift that has been happening over the past few years. Many small business owners, present company included when some of us owned restaurants, used to get a huge return from radio, direct mail, newspaper and television. About 5 years ago I could take out an ad for $200 in the local newspaper along with a direct mail carpet bomb of the 5 mile radius around my business and I had too much business to handle. Fast forward to today and that same newspaper ad and direct mail piece are unlikely to separate yourself from your competition because you are all competing for the same customers. We have talked to prospective customers still getting 5-10% redemption rates on these marketing mediums and if you are one of these businesses, congrats to you.

Social media and mobile marketing in today’s market work so well because you are not competing with every other business in your market category for the same customers. Customers are not likely to “like” every restaurant, clothing store, politician, pizza shop in their hometown. Especially true for opt-in customers with text marketing in that most people will only opt-in to one mobile database in each market. Mobile marketing and social media allows you to have their full attention and communicate with them as a real person.

How many of you are likely to tell a friend about a great newspaper ad you saw? Not many if you are like us. How many of you are likely to forward a text offer for a BOGO or the link to Facebook page of a business that constantly rewards its fans with free offers?

The best way to start getting your feet wet in social media and mobile marketing is to slowly integrate it into your existing methods. If you get a positive ROI from direct mail, radio, television or newspaper you don’t need to stop doing these. Use these mediums to get your mobile call to action out there and build your database. Use them to invite people to ‘like’ you on Facebook or ‘follow’ you on Twitter.

Build your subscribers and fans to a point where you can compare the redemption rates and real sales among the various methods. If you wait too long to start, you may find your once loyal customers stolen away by a competitor who has embraced mobile marketing and social media before you thought you needed or wanted to.