Inbound Internet Marketing

Is radio advertising a smart move for small and medium size business?

A radio advertising campaign is very expensive.  But beside the price are small and medium size business getting a good bang for you buck in regards to mainstream radio advertising.

The vast majority of people under 25 don’t listen to radio on a regular basis.  When they do they are in a car.

The under 25 demographic is getting their music through iTunes and online service such as Pandora.  I don’t think satellite radio is making a dent in this demo.

What does this mean to the future of mainstream radio?  Well the news is not good.  First the average age of listeners is (which is now around 43 and is going to sky rocket).  The number one demo in radio is Women (25-35).  Over time main stream radio will not be able to reach this market.

Modern day radio stations are built from market demos up.  Each station’s music is geared to reach a particular demographic.  “Soft Rock” is geared to women 25-35.  “Classic Rock” is male and female 35 plus.  “Country” is women 25-35 and men 35-50.

The morning drive time is the most import slot because it sets the tone for the day.  Some stations (such as Soft Rock and Classic Rock stations) are hoping that you will listen to the station at work and thus the rest of the day.

The radio industry is jumping all over the “talk” format (sports or politics) as the demo is mostly male (about 80% which is bad) but very high household income (which is OK).

The major problem is the 25 and under set now has iTunes and Pandora to satisfy their music needs.  The bond between the listener and the station (that was common all the way up to the 90’s) is no longer there.

What does this all mean to small and medium size businesses?  Well radio is no longer an advertising option.  The price of radio is still very expensive.  The cost of one 60 second spot runs between $300 to $1,200 (in a top ten market such as Boston).  A starter program runs about $15,000.

Radio, like most advertising, works by repetition.  So you need a lot of spots to enter the top of mind awareness of the listener.  A starter package of $15,000 does not have enought spots rise above the clutter. But even if you do run a campaign to rise above the clutter you will not be hitting the most important demo.

A $15,000 budget buys you a lot of inbound internet marketing.

One of the most common mistakes small and medium size business make in regards to advertising is that they chose a media outlet that they like but is not their demographic.  Small and medium size business owners must remember that they (most of the time) not their demographic.

Newpapers are bleeding to death and there is no hope in site.  Radio is not far behind and small and medium size businesses need to be asking a lot of questions before they move forward with a Radio buy.  The most important questions are:  Who is my demographic?  Is the cost to reach my demographic far to high with radio advertising?  Will any amount of advertising on radio reach my demographic?

 

 

 

I am an Ad Man.

 “I am an Ad man”.  In the movie “There Will Be Blood”, Daniel Day Lewis’ character address a town meeting by saying. “I like to think of myself as an Oil Man.”  Well I like to think of myself as an Ad Man.

I have been selling advertising for over ten years.  I have sold Print, Radio, Magazines, Online, Billboards, Out of Home, Transit, Nontraditional and other formats to large and small retailers and clients.  The only medium I don’t have direct experience is TV (Cable and Network).  But since I been around for a while I have a good handle concerning the buying and selling of TV.

In this series I going to review the pros and cons of each media in regards of the cost as compared to reaching your target audience.  Where is the best bang for your buck and where is your buck not getting you any bang at all.

Before we start you may want to review the posts:  Who are your customers? and What do you sell? If you don’t know these things then you are throwing away your marketing dollars.

The Death of Hubspot.

The death rattle you hear over at Cambridge, MA is the last breaths of Hubspot.

The once proud forerunner in the Social Media space has now become no longer relevant to the conversation of how small and medium size businesses use Social Media.  Oh how the mighty have fallen.

So what happen?  What went wrong?  Well I can think of a couple of things.

First, MIT frat boys don’t mix with small business owners.  Imagine a small business owner trying to keep his head above water during these tough times and a MIT frat boy walks in and says. “You have to change you advertising strategy and put your website on our server and we will charge you a thousand or two a month while we teach you Social Media…and by the way you will have to do most of the work.  Plus there is no proven ROI numbers we can show because the media is so new.”

Yeah, that is not going to go over well.  The small business owner of today is putting in an incredible amount of hours and is extremely worried about today’s business environment. Introduced to an untraditional marketing tool by a group with little to no first hand knowledge of how a small business works can be at the very least annoying.

Second, is the nerd factor.  Hubspot is very obnoxious about their status of being the social media cool kid on the block.  If you drink the Kool Aid and follow them they will graciously bestow a comment about how smart you are to be in their club.  If you dare question their practices a rain of stones from the heavens above will chastise you for daring to question the man behind the curtain.

Lastly is that the term “Social Media Guru “ is one of the most over used terms in advertising.  I think the guy who fixes my car has a website and is on Twitter claiming to be a Social Media Guru. The Hubspot brain trust does not have an advertising background.  So when companies do look to add some social media to their campaigns they don’t want to turn to a “Social Media Guru” because there are literally thousands of them out there.  They are going to turn to the traditional advertising firms to inquire how they should use social media.  It is part of their media buy so it makes sense for them to turn to traditional firms for help.

I am General Manager at a small advertising firm in Boston.  I have been implementing advertising campaigns for small business for many years.  In fact a Hubspot recruiter called me once for an interview which I declined.  I field a lot of questions on how small business should be using Social Media.  The tools of Social Media are out there for anyone to use.  It is just a matter of showing the client how to use them.  The one cost to a small business owner is their time (which comes at a very high price).  No company can get around this fact.

So as Hubspot employees play beer pong at their corporate offices the Grim Reaper is knocking at their door, if they like it or not.

 

What do you sell?

 What do you sell?

For small retailers this is the first question that they should be asking themselves.

One of the very few things that come out of an economic downturn is that we all get back to basics.

I knew a small retailer that sold materials to make curtains.  When I ask him what he sold he looked at me as if I was crazy and said “Curtains”.  But what I wanted to know is what type of “curtains” did he sell?  Was it “high end” curtains or “average cost” curtains?  Did he handle the installation of the curtains thus making it a one stop shopping experience?  Did he offer any other interior design work?  Since he customers were buying curtains what other items or services did the customer plan on buying?  New furniture?  Repainting the interior of their house?

The key thing here is not to reinvent the wheel.  No one had time for this and right now everyone has to use their limited resources in strategies that will bear fruit.

So you have to go with your strengths.  But in order to do that you need to know what your strengths are.  Thus once again you have to listen to everything your customers tells you and use your face time with your customers to gather as much information as possible.  Simple because your customers are going to tell you what you should be selling.

The Map Wars - Verizon and ATT

 Whoever thought of the Verizon Map campaign should receive a huge bonus.  Not only is it a huge hit but it has caused ATT to dump a large amount of cash (in the millions) to rebut the ads.  You win the Gold Medal of advertising when you cause your competitor to spend large amounts of cash to answer your campaign.

ATT has taken the bait and is running many different ads just to compete against the Verizon run.  Only if ATT just told the truth and let people know the real difference.  The answer to the map question is that ATT covers 85% of the United States population.  Verizon covers more geographic area but their are covering a lot of sheep in Wyoming.  So if you live where the vast majority of Americans live you will have no problem with ATT's coverage.

Why ATT doesn't tell you this straight out is beyond me.  Instead they are spending millions of dollars in "counterads" to try to make Verizon look bad.  If I was ATT I just would have a spokesperson say. "Hey, if you live where 85% of Americans do you will not have a problem.  If you a cattle rancher in Montana then you may want to try Verizon."  There.  Now how many cattle ranchers in Montana are there?

What we have gained and what we have lost.

With the boom of Social Media we have gained so much.  Mainly information. We now have access to a staggering amount of information. If we have questions about any topic we can search the web for answers.  If we can't find them we can turn to Twitter and other social media tools and search for solutions there.  Never before in the history of mankind have we had such ability to gather information or be so connected with each other.  It is truly the dawn of a new time for mankind.

What did we give up.  Privacy.  We have been so busy connecting that we have given up our privacy.  People know where we live, what are views are on social issues and many other topics that in the past would be impossible to tract.  In fact I have heard a story of attorneys (that have been hired by corporations) joining Facebook and gathering friends for the sole purpose of tracking employees comments to insure that they are not bad mouthing the company, giving away company secrets or involving themselves in unseemly behavior.

I think this is a fair trade.  Privacy is over rated.  The government (especially in the post 9/11 world) has been tracking our library books and God knows what else.  I think privacy is an illusion.

So bring on the wealth of information.  Given a choice I will take the ability to connect to one billion people over my illusion of privacy anyday!   

Is Affiliate Marketing a way to go for Inbound Internet Marketing?

 There are a ton of people who call themselves Social Media Experts, Organic SEO Mavens or some other such name.  The problem is that big companies are looking to traditional advertising firms for help with Social Media and small business don't have the time needed to make Social Media work.  So where does this leave all these "experts".

One place can be affiliate marketing.  There are a lot of great programs where you can make $35 for every sign up for a "free trail offer".  There are also many who will pay for lead generation.

The cool thing about this is that you can be your own boss.  You don't have to try to sell companies on the Social Media you just have to use your skills to promote your own programs.

Until the whole picture of Social Media shakes out (and it will take time and social media companies are going to have to work on a smaller scale) affiliate marketing may be a profitable way to go.

If you want to check out my little site it is www.maxihealth.info.

Can't give the stuff away!

Yesterday I saw a very strange thing.  I was leaving my office in downtown Boston and on the street corners were people giving away (for free) the afternoon edition of the Boston Herald. 

Now a year ago all the people that past the promotion would have taken the free newspaper for their ride home on the Commuter Rail or the T.  

Not one person took a newspaper.  Not one!

Why?  I can only guess is that everyone got their news from the internet and had no need for the afternoon paper.  It was today's paper but it was old news.

If this doesn't trigger the newspaper industry that the death knoll has rung than nothing will.  But is it to late?  I think it is.  The newspapers have been replaced and you can't give the stuff away!

Homework for Social Media Types

There are a lot of Social Media Types out there.  I have some homework for you.  I want you to go to a small or medium size business.  One where the owner is on site or they own a few stores and have a corporate office.  Try to make an appointment.  That in it self will take time.

Once you sit down with the owner ask them about their use of Social Media.  Do they have a blog?  Do they have a Facebook corporate page?  Do they use Twitter? Is there website able to have interested parties sign up for additional information.

More then likely they are doing none of this.  Now what?  Well I tell you one thing they don't have the time to have you teach them all you know about Social Media.  They are overworked and very stressed out (especially in these times).  They want someone to do all this for them.  The problem is that they can't hire you by the hour because they can't afford it.  So what to do?

You can offer them to be a lead generator.  Use your skills to build a small site and drive traffic there and have the ability to have people sign up if they want additional information.  This is a qualified lead and small and medium companies are more likely to spend money on qualified leads then hire you as a Social Media consultant.

It is still very hard to track traditional advertising.  If you ask most people where they saw your ad most will reply the largest media outlet in town even though you have never advertised there.  By walking in the door with qualified leads you are offering something that only Social Media Marketers can offer.

Now never tell an owner that they are wasting their time with traditional advertising.  You just want to be the outlet that can prove their worth by handing over qualified leads and getting paid per lead.

Now I know that at the Foxwoods Casino in CT they figure that every person that walks in the door will spend $250.  So how much will they pay for a qualified lead?  $50 or $100?

So don't be the guy who says I will teach you something that will take up a lot of your time and take time to learn (while you are paying me).  Be the guy that says, "How much will you pay me for each qualified lead I bring you."

Let me know your thoughts!

One Year and Counting

Last August I started my blog after reading David Meerman Scott's book, "The New Rules of Marketing and PR". It opened my eyes to a brand new world of Social Media.

Looking back on my one year anniversary I can see the many changes that have happened to Internet Marketing.  Twitter is almost main stream.  80% of all people on Twitter are social media gurus.  Companies have built these shinning new corporations and in some cases "ships" to attract companies to use their Social Media services (an update on how that is working out latter on).

Everyone is getting in to the Social Media game.  Even news outlets are allowing their copy to be shared.  And for those newspapers that are not deep into Social Media....death awaits.

Even radio advertising is changing as a whole new generation is not only not buying or reading printed newspapers but with their Ipods and internet radio channels for free they are no longer listening to traditional radio (unless they are stuck in a car somewhere and that too will change).

Advertising and Media are moving a new direction and if you don't get on the bus you will be left behind and someone else will take your demo.  And that will not be good news for you.

I also had a chance to comment on current events and such topics as sports and politics.  I have called out a few people and companies for things that they said or did that I thought was wrong. I don't plan on been invited to a lot of parties.

This brings to my number one grip about the social media companies.  Stop talking among yourselves. Go into a small retail store (locally owned) and talk to the owner about social media.  Their opinion counts not your small group of social media friends that think what your doing is cool.  It you can't sell your services to a company (and this may entail convincing them that the benefits of social media) then what your doing to make your company shinny is not worth a dam.

So I move forward from here.  On to year two.  Can't wait to see what happens next!