As small business owner have you ever sat down and think that what type of marketing is right for your business, traditional marketing or social media marketing?
If you have this question, then you are not alone. I have been talking to many small businesses recently and this is one of the most asked questions.
There could be following reasons behind this question:
- Lots of businesses are not aware of the power of social media tools
- Not aware of content marketing and how it can benefit their business
- Traditional marketing is expensive and generally returns are decreasing
In my opinion social media marketing is an asset for your business and other form of marketing is an expense. Let me explain my point.
Traditional Marketing
When I say traditional marketing I mean:
- News paper adds
- Direct mail
- TV adverts
- Radio adverts etc.
In my experience there are two major problems people facing with this sort of marketing.
- People are not paying attention to these types of marketing messages
- The moment you stop paying for this sort of marketing, you stop getting inquiries
- If you manage to generate inquiries with traditional marketing, even though you have to sell those customers. Inquiries do not guarantee that prospect will buy from you.
Traditional marketing can generate quick inquiries but to convert inquiries to a sale you will need really robust system such as, excellent customer services, really good landing pages etc. which generally is really difficult for many small business owners.
Social Media Marketing
In contrast to traditional marketing, social media marketing is all about sharing and sharing happens through content such as:
- Blog posts,
- Photos,
- Videos,
- Pod casts etc.
When you invest in creating these sorts of pieces of content they will be going to stay there for infinite time.
For example:
You paid $500 to create a video. When you will post that video to Youtube chances are that video will stay there till Youtube will be there and will keep bringing you the traffic to your blog or website if you optimise the video in a right way.
In contrast to paying $500 for news paper ads will bring few inquiries (if you are lucky) in that particular day or month you paid only.
If you are paying for building a blog, you might get a slow response but with the passage of time, if you manage to help people well through your blog, people will come back and bring friends and family as well.
Generally inquiries generated through social media marketing are already sold.
People wanted to do business with you because you helped them with your free content already.
Moral of the Story
Traditional marketing is an expense and social media marketing becomes your asset.
$500 dollars spent on news paper ad can potentially bring some inquiries (if you are lucky) on that day or month only whereas rightly created you tube video will last there for years to bring back traffic to your website or blog.
You may have experiences of social media marketing as a marketer? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below or ask any question you may have regarding this.
Photo credit: bixentro
