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A 10 channel marketing mix

10 ways to channel the market place

With inbound marketing, you want to be where your customers expect to find you. For most organizations, marketing and promoting requires more than digital and public relations (PR). A good example of this is INC Magazines’ short video testimonial by Untuckit CEO and co-founder Aaron Sanandres on How This CEO’s Old-School Marketing Plan Helped His Company Take Off published in September of 2019. Originally, they relied upon PR alone. He started exploring with radio and figured out how to use it to increase sales of their shirts. They saw immediate results. They also bought advertising in a niche magazine. This works when you know your users.

Keep in mind when deciding on your marketing mix, each platforms’ audience will need to see your message at least seven times before you receive a return on your advertising investment. To do this most effectively, keep your same style and image with your type, photos, graphic, and messages by adapting them to the platform you’re using. A print ad does not bode well online just as Twitter does not translate to Facebook. You want your customers to visually recognize you on- and offline like the professional that you are.

Let’s look at the ten channels you can “mix together” to reach your audience multiple times with the same message or campaign. Choose wisely; stay focused.

1. Product Placement

When you see consumer products highlighted in sporting events, movies, and television shows, there’s probably a contract/business agreement behind making sure that particular brand can be seen by the audience. Normally, these agreements include exclusive rights in a product category. If you go this route, be sure to include a statement of exclusivity when appropriate.

These paid placements can increase sales when done right. As a case study, check out Ad Ages’ 2014 article How Coca-Cola’s ‘American Idol’ Deal Transformed TV Advertising.

Product placement can come in many forms to include paid advertising, sponsorship, in-kind donations, and financial support.

Make your product placement more than just a visual of your logo or brand name. To get the most bang out of your marketing dollars, address your relationship like a business partnership between your product and the host organization. For example,

Event	Host Needs	Product Needs
Sporting Events	Increased participation	Increased Sales
Award Ceremonies	Improved prizes and give-a-ways	Improved Audience/People Relationships
Concerts	Talent Sponsors	Digital word-of-mouth Crowd Sourcing

Always ask…

What is the purpose of this partnership?
What does each organization need out of this partnership?
Is there mission compatibility between us?

At a local level, you could pair community theater with a locally owned boutique, a charity race with a coffee house, and a concert with an art show.

The skies the limit on what you can do when you approach the partnership with a win-win attitude for both organizations.

2 Print

Publishers often design tabloids, newspapers, and magazines to help promote specialized industries and communities. I always recommend supporting the communities where you reside through your advertising dollars. Follow their advertisement specifications. San Antonio Magazine updates their Ad Specifications annually.

Self- promotion articles as “advertorials” offer a close and personal glimpse of your operation. My friend Jack sells real estate and has periodically placed an advertorial in East Wichita News. I found his 2017 add online on issuu.

If purchasing national advertising, be sure to study the publication’s audience and circulation audit reports. You want to make sure those readers are or could be your customers.

A great way to get your name and company name in front of your customers is through writing feature articles with photos and appropriate links. Most offer an internet version which gets you online. Smaller news organizations often appreciate the help. Stories need to be newsworthy, self-help, or human-interest topics. Send photos with captions if a publications audience would be interested in the subject of your photo. Self-promotional articles are taboo unless they are paid advertorials.

3 Radio

Successful radio advertising depends on frequency – how often the ad runs in a short time period. Multiple times during the day with a focused campaign provides the best coverage to promote a product. The return on your investment can be an expensive proposition if not done right. INC Magazine’s How to Buy Radio Advertising on a Budget covers the basics in radio media buy strategy. Originally published in 2010, it’s still current today plus it includes industry links.

Supporting National Public Radio and Public Television in your area may also be an option for you. This is especially true if your product is business to business or in the service industry like law or accounting.

4 Television

Like radio, television can be an expensive proposition. INC Magazine also offers tips on buying television advertising on a budget.

When I worked for a television station in the 1980s, one of our furniture advertisers bought airtime after midnight. He targeted the three local stations and saturated their audience by consistently being there every night. You can use this same technique today because frequency is a key in any advertising and marketing mix. Focus on a few; repeat often.

Like the radio buy article, INC also offers How to Buy TV Advertising on a Budget. In addition to basic information, check out their industry links.

Television and radio stations include a strong web presence for their advertisers. Be sure they included both on your contract buy.

With streaming video, times have changed. Instead of actual airtime buys, you can incorporate TV advertising by tying your product promotions into the experience. For example, a local restaurant could promote home delivery to watch the new series release of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan on Amazon Prime or Netflix’s Stranger Things. Timing will be important to get the most out of new releases of popular series. A local clothing store could offer in-store alternatives to the casts’ wardrobe ensembles. A coffee house could offer a contest to create a coffee or select an existing coffee drink that could be a flavor favorite of popular characters from TV shows. Imagine what you could do with a tie in to VH-1 RuPaul’s Drag Race – makeup, clothing, gym membership, and more. Be creative. It just might work for you.

5 World Wide Web aka Internet

This medium is right for everyone whether you’re in retail, non-profit, business to business, or the service industry. You can showcase your products and services through videos, photos, articles, and events directly to the public.

Social Media

For social media, your best bet is to focus on what you can handle to keep it current and interesting. Sometimes that might just be one app or it could be the basic four or more. If you want to be a professional social media marketer, Hootsuite offers 17 other apps you may want to use for your trade 21 of the Best Social Media Apps for Marketers in 2019.

The web allows your customers to choose how much information they want, when they want it, and where they want it — at home or on the road. In retail, your best investment centers on your website. People expect for you to have one.

Website

Your website acts like the brochures of the last century. Depending on content, some brochures were tri-fold one page documents while others were slick magazines. It depends on your product and services as to how much content needs to be included. That’s the same for your website. Remember, less is more. (Find more of our how-to guidelines at Communicate Better.)

Just like newspapers of yesterday taught their readers what to expect; so has the web. The web even uses similar language like banner ad, above the fold, and more. “Above the fold” now refers to the area on your page that people see without scrolling. It’s the most important real estate on your website. Use it wisely.

Moderating the activity of what others post about you brings a challenge. When replying, I aim for a conversational tone with customers’ positive and negative comments. Most often, customers just want to be heard. Your response time can be important – critical if you allow comments on your website. If you allow, make sure you have to approve before posting. In addition, we recommend you have your settings to notify you when a site visitor comments.

Digital Advice

My reference point for design, content, and user experience on the internet has been the Federal Government:

These sites’ missions might be to provide communication guidance to federal employees and agencies, I use them because they’re free, available to the public, and are research-based in their findings and recommendations.

Be sure your website is available on any device, any time, and anywhere. If you’re like 99% of businesses, you will only need one website to be accessible to your customers. Make sure you update to the latest content management system like WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, and many others. I mention those three as they are easy to use for the non-developer.

Search Engine Optimization

It’s important that we use words our customers expect us to use. In addition to observation and research, you can also use tools to help you. Besides Google, one I have used is Answer the Public. The Search Engine Journal offers others in their article The Top 15 Free SEO Tools You Should Be Using. Check them out for your SEO marketing.

6 Mobile

Mobile is unique as it is the most personal mass medium there is. It offers us a direct relationship with our customers. Plus smartphones connect us in the real world through social media, meetups, web search, and location detection services.

I subscribe to Luke Wroblewski’s theory of Mobile First. This theory promotes designs that respond to screen size and provide future friendly coding to work – into the future. Think smart watches, voice search, and more.

Before you build your website, make sure the theme you use is responsive and can easily be updated when technology changes. Most are in today’s technical world.

7 Direct Mail Marketing

Email

In today’s communications, email ranks number one among consumers – for now. A database management system can help you systematically direct people to your website through regularly scheduled emails.

Study the messages you receive from your customers noticing strategy and usage of key words. Coordinate email messaging with online and offline promotions to include advertising materials, feature articles, special events, and photos reinforcing the same messages on various mediums.

The beauty of using a program like MailChimp and Constant Contact, you can send out bulk emails. If you try to manage a database on your own, chances are it would all go to the recipients’ “spam” or junk folders. There are other services out there. MailChimp and Constant Contact just happen to be the two that I have personally used.

U.S. Postal Service

I also recommend the U.S. Postal Service to help drive your target audience to your website and storefront. Check out their 10 steps to help create a successful direct mail campaign info-graphic.

You can hire a mail house or, the Postal Service recently introduced a “Every Door Direct Mail” service and made it easy to purchase online. With this service you bulk mail to a carrier route without requiring labels. This mailing is more generic than individual labeling; it targets neighborhoods. For a local coffee house, bar, or retail center this might be exactly what you need. A postcard works best as the recipient does not need to do anything to see your message. Make sure it’s clean and clear.

8 Internal Communications and Marketing

Internal communications keep everyone in your workplace and community informed. Be authentic; hard truth is much easier to take than rumors. If you do not let your staff know what’s happening, they will make something up. Usually, employees lean towards a situation of fear or a feeling of not being important enough to know about the news or changes. This article The Cost of Poor Communications by the Society for Human Resource Management gives actual dollar amounts (in 2013 dollars). The New Hampshire Business Review’s Communication with your employees is a necessity for businesses speaks of the workplace culture of trust that good communication can bring. Both serve as two good reasons for communicating well and often to your employees.

Also your employees, suppliers, and contractors often make your best customers. It’s smart to market to them specifically. Ensure you have one of your best people managing this critical business communications product.

9 Onsite Marketing

Onsite signage helps visitors feel secure in knowing where they are or where they are going. The same can be said for a small retail store pointing to “sale items” and a 170,000 acre recreation area like Land Between the Lakes showing visitors “you are here.” Visual signage helps customers quickly find what they want and improves their experience with your brand.

Ensure readability. I just visited an area where the print was so small that you had to leave your car. It was cold and rainy, so we did not read it. It’s best to have less information and more readers than a lot of information and fewer readers. After all, if people want more information, they’re trained to go online.

10 Quick Response (QR) Codes

When you include your digital media and physical location addresses on all platforms, you increase the odds for success in your marketing efforts. For easy access, I use QR-codes (Quick Response) to link to my digital media on any printed materials — this includes packaging and signing.

Because QR codes allow for instant access to additional information, you can generate a new code for special events, important updates, and more. Consumers expect QR codes in retail stores, museums, and self-guided tours. One more reason why “mobile” leads the design process.

QR Codes work perfect with onsite signage and mobile friendly websites. If you keep your linked web page up to date on your site, your outdoor or indoor sign can last through its entire expected lifetime because the content will be always current.

It’s a wrap

I hope this helps you to think beyond digital when looking into your next advertising and marketing budget plan. There is so much to gain with a solid marketing mix that reaches your customer and potential customer base on multiple platforms, multiple times. Remember to target where they already go when they search for information or products like you have.

Take care, Jan

No marketing? No problem.

Rising above the noise of marketing requires having a plan that guides you through decisions. These 5 strategies can help you succeed.

5 Strategies you can start using today

You have no excuse now. Use these basic marketing strategies to build your plan. Jot down your ideas. Make your plan simple and to the point. Include something you can do now that will help build your future.

The five marketing concepts that guide me the most when developing marketing strategies include:

Inbound Marketing
Content Marketing
Permission Marketing
Relationship Marketing
Target Marketing

1 Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing places you where your customers expect you to be. The four other strategies support inbound marketing.

Where are your customers?

If your customers expect to find you when they visit a strip mall, then that’s where you would be. You would make sure:

Your storefront is in order and attracts people into your store;
Your merchandise is displayed for easy access and purchasing; and
Your staff is trained to engage and build a loyal customer base.

The same goes with your online presence — and the number one place people expect to find your business is online. Today without a website, you do not exist.

Inbound marketing strategy focuses on attracting your customers with your message by:

Designing websites to search engine standards so people can find you;
Providing original content that site visitors value; and
Engaging customers to trust in you and your passion which builds your online community or “tribe.”

HubSpot has been my go-to site for training me on Social Media. My daughter received her Inbound Marketing Certification from HubSpot University. Their comparison chart from my original post on this subject in 2012 continues to be a great visual comparing inbound with traditional, outbound marketing.

Inbound comparison chart to outbound marketing by HubSpot — HUBSPOT COMPARISON CHART OF IN- AND OUTBOUND MARKETING FROM 2012 HTTPS://WWW.HUBSPOT.COM/RESOURCES

You can find good explanations of Inbound Marketing by searching in your browser. This HubSpot article integrates their services so they kept it easy to understand. Check out their 2019 version at What is Inbound Marketing?

This graphic comes from that article and I found it helpful also.

HubSpot inbound marketing graphic with table

Graphic explanation with table from HubSpot’s What is Inbound Marketing?

Traditional Marketing

Outbound marketing, also known as traditional marketing, can factor in when customers expect to find you in a store front as mentioned above. They also may expect to hear you on the radio, or find you advertising in a lifestyle magazine. Today demands you show up where your customers are already present.

Social Media

Reliance upon inbound marketing skyrocketed because of social media and instant communications. People no longer went to the newspapers or TV for their news, they came to rely upon social media and the internet.

These numbers demonstrate that social media is impacting our lives. Would you feel lost without it? I know I’ve come to rely upon the various social media channels.

Screen gab of social media usage | retrieved 5/4/2019 — Link up to this site to see the numbers fly before your eye! Snapshot taken at 11:33 on May 4, 2019. http://www.internetlivestats.com/

2 Content Marketing

Your content is critical for your inbound marketing success — and you can’t fake passion so stick with something you know.

1996 Way Back Machine

“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.”
Microsoft Founder Bill Gates
Content is King

2012 Search Engine Watch

“It is more important than ever to write from your own experience, on topics on which you have first-hand knowledge, in order to create something not only original in sentence structure or word choice, but in essence.”
Formerly Google “Spam Czar” Matt Cutts
Talks Infographics, Differentiation & More SEO Topics

2018 Forbes

“Content marketing has taken over because it’s so useful to every function of marketing teams today. Content is one of the best tools you have for earning trust, building your brand, generating site traffic and qualified leads, and everything in between. Content marketing is marketing, and the brands that understand content is core to effective marketing — and, ultimately, to their entire business — will set themselves up for success.”
Writer and Forbes Contributor John Hall
5 content marketing trends to watch in 2019

Content is King

I use these quotes to emphasize that content was, is, and always will be –king.

That’s why becoming better at communicating with people will increase your success in your career. We are already seeing artificial intelligent computers take over more white color tasks like robotics took over blue color of the last century. Your ability to problem solve and communicate clearly will be instrumental in helping your customers to become loyal customers. Bots may be able to deliver static information; however, people need people to be a part of a community of loyal customers.

You can check out our rules for How to communicate better. We keep it current when we discover new information or trends. Our Equal Folks blog will help you write for humanity.

Be a thought leader.

Choose an area where you can distinguish yourself as a thought leader. Focus on the most interesting or profitable side of your business and become a “SME” (pronounced “smeee”) — subject matter expert.

The best content offers your original thoughts in an entertaining way. You can offer your content by blogging on your website, posting on social media platforms, or distributing your stories through emails, eMagazines, or eBooks. Photos, videos, and graphics all add to the written word. Vary your delivery.

Always remember to comment on other people’s posts. This is especially true when you have something to contribute of interest to their audience AND compliments the author.

It used to be critical to post often – almost every day. Today, however, people just want you to be consistent in quality, provide topics of their interests, and engage with them. You want to especially be responsive when they initiate the engagement.

3 Permission Marketing

To be successful, inbound marketing requires your customers to want your content, product, or service. Today your customers and potential customers give you permission to keep them informed with your latest offerings. If you earn their trust, they will let you keep sending them content or follow you on social media.

Ask for Permission

You may want to offer incentives to entice people to “opt in” to your eNewsletters and to accept push notifications. Remember to always offer an easy “opt out” process. Many people will return when they cannot find a “you” and your content anywhere else.

The Can-Spam Act of 2003 clarified requirements for permission marketing and emails. You can refer to it or just follow the Golden Rule —

Treat others they way you want to be treated.

The most successful incentives usually focus on alleviating one “pain point.” The most popular incentive today is wrapped up in a webinar. Video is fast becoming the medium of choice. Remember, you also have people who learn through reading, so be sure to offer a written transcript or summary.

Your incentive can also be check lists, ebooks, challenges, group memberships, templates, and training videos. It just needs to be something of importance to your audience and most importantly, to your paying customers and potential customers. We always recommend you provide something of value that would naturally evolve into your paid services and products.

I think you might be the same as me. When I do decided to check out a person or company through their incentive, I expect to be satisfied with the offer. Remember to go through the entire 5-step process:

The 5-step process

Focus on one pain point I have.
Help me solve it.
Let me feel good about it.
Engage with me and make me feel special.
Then do a soft sell to get me to purchase the full product or services.

I find that over half of the incentives take you through steps one and two, then jump to step 5 with a hard sell. I become loyal and actually help promote people who have taken me through the 5-steps.

Best Practice

One of the best followers of the 5-step process that I have found is Natalie Ledwell and MindMovies. I believe I first took her quiz on Facebook, downloaded the free visualization videos, devoured reviews, and then enrolled in her mastermind class — all the while being asked to join the class. She made it my decision. Her mastermind class continues through live call-ins and a monthly online magazine full of interviews and downloads with additional free and paid offers. I have met other students by attending motivational speaker Mary Morrissey’s Dream Builder Workshops offered for free to Ledwell’s students.

4 Relationship Marketing

Social networking sites are all about building relationships and developing trust with customers; critical to effective inbound marketing efforts.

2019 Change This

“You build customer loyalty when the people in your organization show empathy for customers, take responsibility for helping them reach their real goals, and treat them generously.”
Franklin Covey authors Sandy Rogers, Leena Rinne, and Shawn Moon
Leading Loyalty: Cracking the Code to Customer Devotion

Building Relationships

Take time to generate mutual respect relationships between you and your followers. Develop a human voice when you engage. Schedule time out for 30 minutes a day to check any reactions to your posts.

Say thank you; then make it two-way

When people direct message (DM) you or comment on your products and services, strike up a conversation – even to say, “thank you.” Make the conversations two-way so the customer will talk back to you.

Conduct live call ins, interviews, and other ways for groups of people to interact with you. In addition to Facebook Live; LinkedIn is now offering video streaming. You can check out this TechCrunch article LinkedIn debuts LinkedIn Live, a new live video broadcast service. HubSpot offers How to Use Facebook Live: The Ultimate Guide online that you can reference for free..

Remember to keep it simple and personal on a business level. Building relations with your customers is a key piece in moving from the traditional one-way to two-way communicating with inbound marketing.

Be real; integrity is everything. Have fun; enjoy meeting new people. Learn everything you can about your customers; keep an open dialogue with them.

5 Target Marketing

Defining your customer base helps you to narrow down your business and promotional strategies. It helps you make decisions on spending time cultivating customers who help you be profitable. Somewhere I read that organizations could let 70% of their customers go to be more successful. When you try to please everyone, that’s probably a true statement.

Your loyal customers

Who are they? Write out your ideal customer. Build the demographic details from your current customer base. Who can you help and who helps you succeed?

Creating personas for the types of customers you want – and even the customers you do not want – can help define your target market. If you want loyal customers, you need to be engaging with the right customer. Personas are fictional people with enough detail for you to be able to focus in on their demographic type.

Again, HubSpot has a blog post about building personas for your business at How to Create Detailed Buyer Personas for Your Business. It offers a good guide. Social Media Today’s How to Create a Buyer Persona for Your Business [Infographic] can also help you.

Media and Civic organizations

Cultivating news media relationships in person and online can improve your odds of gaining free press. Industry organizations, tourism bureaus, civic organizations, and chambers of commerce provide other target groups for your product/services. Personal support of these groups in your communities is a good business practice. Most often organizations help promote their members – especially chambers.

Working as one

Integrating these five marketing concepts into one, inbound marketing strategy will help you succeed where others fail. It’s a serious game we play to rise above the noise of instant communication and network ourselves with the right people at the right time.

Your challenge

If you do not have a strategy yet, set aside an hour and come up with your marketing plan using these five strategies. Keep it simple. Make it happen. Change as things change. Be sure you can accomplish your goals. Grandiose goals are fine for the long term — short term goals will get you there.

Take care and happing strategizing,

Jan

P.S. No endorsements to buy anything is intended, and no one is paying me to link to them. I’m just sharing with you quality content I have found.

Loyal Customers Wanted

Find out what technology to use to improve your customer relationship management.

Since the beginning of stone-age, traders have understood the importance of managing customer expectations. For over a century Dale Carnegie courses have taught students that same principle of “putting customers first.” I know because I am a Dale Carnegie Sales Course graduate.

We now call this awareness of customer service — customer relationship management or CRM for short.

With technology, our world has also become smaller while the number of people with whom we communicate has grown larger. The “Dunbar Number” of 150 people we relied upon in our past has exploded. Even in the smallest of businesses we require thousands of repeat customers to succeed.

CRM Software to the rescue

In our digitally networked society of today, we need help. We still want our customers to:

Feel important,
Find what they want, and
Come back for more with their friends.

Customer relationship management software takes a personal approach with your customers onto the digital platforms. It helps managers provide timely and customized information about products and services that interest your targeted audiences.

Customer purchases, social media followers, and eNewsletter subscribers can all be used to define your target market. You can also use them to place specific sales items or products in front of a smaller customer base.

You’ve experienced this. When you search for a product like bicycles, do advertisements for bicycles populate your feeds? That’s the search engine of Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft using the equivalent of CRM software. You just use it with a much smaller scale when you target your customers through your channels.

Placing products in front of your customers makes their purchasing decisions much easier. These product-feeds serve the same purpose as the aisle end-caps and window displays in brick-and-mortar stores.

One of the best articles that I found about CRM Software comes from Business News Daily. Check out Best CRM Software 2018 by Mona Bushnell, B2B Tech Writer at https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7839-best-crm-software.html. Read about their recommendations of the top suppliers and with a detailed review. They also include an extensive alphabetical listing of other CRM software suppliers. You will find help in their companion piece about choosing a CRM supplier at https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7838-choosing-crm-software.html.

Customer Relationship Management is here to stay

Even you have big data to mine in your social media, email lists, and sales reports. Take advantage of it. Using CRM software can help you manage customers’ expectations and provide a personalized experience through automation.

Post Script: Giving Credit where it’s due

I have not had the pleasure of using a customer relationship management software program yet. My knowledge is limited to research on the various CRM supplier websites. That being said…

I must give credit to HubSpot as a mainstay in my continuing education. HubSpot freely shares their knowledge and research through their blog, eBooks, and courses. I have encouraged staff to take courses in HubSpot Academy certification programs. My daughter earned her certificate in inbound marketing through them.

A recent example

Since we must adapt to technology, I want to better understand search engine optimization or SEO. A seismic shift has occurred because voice-activated search invaded our living rooms with Google’s Home and Amazon’s Alexa.

I went to HubSpot for help and found How Do You Optimize for Voice Search? Our Experts Weigh In at https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-optimize-for-voice-search. Check it out if you’re interested.

Business News Daily identified HubSpot as the “Best CRM Software for Very Small Businesses” in their HubSpot Review. This is the extent that I know about their software.

I am not paid by HubSpot. I am just a grateful user of their knowledge base and wished to share this resource with you.

Acronyms defined

AI - Artificial Intelligence
aka - also known as
CE - Continuing Education
CRM - Customer Relationship Management
SEO - Search Engine Optimization

Reference sites

Business News Daily
https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/
HubSpot
https://www.hubspot.com/

Dunbar Theory

I find the Dunbar theory intriguing and have for years. This theory states there is a limit to the number of people we can truly socialize with — around 150. Find out more online to include these articles:

The Limits of Friendship by Maria Konnikova in The New Yorker magazine
https://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/social-media-affect-math-dunbar-number-friendships

Dunbar’s Number in Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number