So we all hear that traditional media is changing. Businesses have been using Newspaper, Television, Radio, Direct Mail, Telemarketing, and Yellow-page advertising for a long time now. So how is media changing?

The person who grew up reading the newspaper is literally dying off. My parents and grand-parents are in that generation. I grew up in the electronic world…TV and Radio. In fact, only three channels on TV and radio saw the switch from AM to FM while I was growing up. Cable TV was new and has come into its own during my lifetime.

My kids grew up with hundreds of TV channels, multi-media platforms all around them all the time. This fragmented media world has caused enormous issues for local business. Just look at how many pillars of the local communities have gone out of business just in the last 10 years or so.

Although TV viewing is still very high, we no longer sit and watch TV as we used to, especially not as a family. We have On-Demand programs and movies available or internet sites that offer programs that we pull up any time, any day, and increasingly the numbers are showing that TV viewing and internet surfing are going on simultaneously.

We definitely don’t listen to the radio the same as when I was growing up. Today it’s satellite radio, an MP3 player or cell phone grabbing my attention instead of my local radio stations, especially while in my car. Direct mail is thrown away for the most part, telemarketing is no longer available due to the governmental “No-Call” list, the yellow-pages are all but dead due to online search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing while most print is far too expensive for a local business to advertise in when comparing its reach.

Our current generation of consumers is hit with as many as 3000-4000 ad impressions every day. How do we in Interactive Advertising assist our clients in getting their message through all of this clutter?
There needs to be a paradigm shift. Local business can no longer market the way that it has for so many years. Things are not the same. Consumers are not the same. Society as a whole is not the same!

So what does work?

There seems to be a very successful trend in using Inbound Marketing. Inbound marketing is a shift of more relationship marketing or permission marketing as Seth Godin coined. It’s using the social media platforms and content to tell your message thus inviting the consumer to contact you. Instead of a business pushing its message out, the business is pulling its customers in.

Social Media is incredibly powerful. There are many case studies that show the success of local business harnessing this power for their message.

As a practitioner of Inbound marketing, I believe that we have to teach our clients how to use these new platforms in conjunction with their current marketing and advertising campaigns or they are just not going to be successful and they too will wind up closing their doors for good.

I’ve put together a list of five elements to making this shift to Inbound Marketing work effectively.

1. Content. Keep your content fresh and relevant. The search engines will rank you higher in searches based on these two elements. They want to serve up the most relevant content to their own customers when they do a search. If your content is current and relevant, you have a better opportunity of showing up. Business owners will say, “But I just don’t have the time to produce this content.” I say make the time, or hire someone to do it. In today’s world content is King! The content that I’m speaking of can be gathered from other sources fairly easily. Trade journals, other articles within the business category, freelance writers, etc.

Your content can be in the form of an article that is written, a blog on your Website, a newsletter, or even a video that shows customers “how to” on a specific subject. It does not have to be some Hollywood production. Just something simple that gets your point across. The main thing is to keep it current.

Articles and Press Releases are another great form of content that works well in social media. There are tons of sites that will accept your articles and the more a business can place content the better the chances of someone finding and choosing to engage.

2. Customer surveys and polls are great. These don’t have to be real elaborate, just engaging for customers to want to participate. It’s a great way to generate market research and shows customers that you care what they think. You can then release the results generating another touch point with your customer base.

3. Videos or photos should be a part of your Website. Visuals are huge when it comes to engaging customers. They see that there are real people doing business. Video testimonials from happy customers are great to use in your social media pages like Facebook and Youtube. Video cameras capable of shooting video for the web are very affordable and are easy to use. In fact, no editing is really needed for this type of videos.

4. Newsletters can serve multiple purposes as well. The traditional newsletter that went out in the mail is long gone. An email newsletter is easy to put together, informs customers of what is going on in the business and can include links to products, special services, videos, etc. An email marketing campaign using a newsletter can be one of the best marketing tools any business can implement. These don’t have to be time consuming and this too can be outsourced at a very reasonable price.

5. Monitor and engage with customers. Once a business is in social media, it doesn’t stop there. Customers will ask questions and post comments. Businesses must be there to answer. Whether it’s Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, LinkedIn, Biznik, Digg, Flickr, or whichever platform that a business chooses to get involved in, the sites have to be monitored and kept current. If a business does not have time to allot, this too can be outsourced.

No matter the business, traditional forms of marketing and advertising no longer work the same. The new ways are effective and measurable and can generate brand recognition as well as sales. In fact, both need to be considered when implementing an online campaign.

Whether a business is optimizing their Website for the search engines or producing content for a social media site, Inbound Marketing is The way to reach today’s consumer. Those of us that work in Interactive advertising and marketing have the responsibility of teaching our clients how to do this correctly and effectively.

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Just as promised…more SEM information to help you grow your website traffic!

Five More Common Paid Search Mistakes
Posted by AnnPruitt

We’ve got even more paid search mistakes for you to avoid, in addition to yesterday’s list.
We remember Sherlock Holmes, and his expert ability to find clues. Your prospective customers need clues to be able to find your company, too.

#6 Poor or no landing page at all – Many newcomers to paid search don’t understand the impact of your landing page on your quality score. If your ad links to a page with irrelevant information, this will damage your quality score, causing you to pay more for clicks and appear lower in searches. This correlation is why linking all ads to your home page is such a bad idea. Creating specific and highly relevant landing pages will improve the effectiveness of your campaign.

#7 Poor ad copy – While this mistake should be obvious, there are a few simple rules to follow that will keep your ad copy fresh and click-friendly. First of all, never use the same word twice. You only have so much space and almost no words are important enough to use twice; think of a different way to state your offer. Also, as mentioned previously, you want to include the keyword pointing to the ad in your ad copy. Most engines will highlight the keyword if you include it, which improves the visibility of your ad. Lastly, you must clearly state the offer and use action words in your copy. If you’re going up against competition directly, make sure your offer at least sounds better than theirs. If they are offering a lower price, for example, you use a percentage number or other differentiating statistic to improve how your offer reads.

#8 Focusing only on “big” keywords and not the long tail – These long tail keywords are generally less competitive and less expensive. Additionally, their clicks skew towards searchers that are farther along in the buying process, because they are searching for a specific term, such as a model number like “Blackberry 8330”. According to some recent studies, 28 percent of terms searched in 2008 had never been searched before. This statistic speaks to the opportunities available in long-tail keywords.

#9 Not pairing SEO with paid search – If you’re not leveraging both, you’re missing out. There is so much commonality in the research that if you are doing one, you might as well do the other. Not to mention that doing both ensures that if something goes wrong, such as the algorithm changing or your paid search budget running out, you are still alive in the other part of search.

#10 Bidding on brand terms only – Bidding on non-brand terms is what brings you new customers. If someone is searching for a term with your brand name in it, they are already familiar with your brand and potentially your exact product. While you must cater to these people as well and complete sales, it is important to remember to seek new customers. The beauty of the internet is its broad reach, and if you do not bid on non-brand terms, you are not taking advantage of this reach to its full extent.

Give paid search a shot with a small campaign budget. Remember, even with a small budget, you can compete with big competitors. Provide the right clues for your prospective customers to be able to find you.

Elementary, my dear Watson.

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