An Understanding of New Media, Inbound Marketing is
Crucial When Attempting to Create The Ultimate Internet Image!
New Media Marketing and/or Inbound Marketing
New Media Marketing is a fairly new label for a well-established concept, relationship/referral marketing.
New media marketing is simply relationship and referral marketing with a Web 2.0, viral twist.
New media marketing is engaged in by online and offline businesses attempting to develop an online community, a following, a congregation, an aggregation of loyal, even raving fans!
The business following, the congregation, thus allows for and even encourages loyal customers, or raving fans, to come together, share experiences, tell stories, and offer anecdotes about their relationship and experiences with the Internet business or traditional brick and mortar concern in question.
The sharing of information enhances the company’s brand and solidifies the relationship between client and business, thus providing the business with a steady stream of repeat customers. I like the label “clients” much better…for a myriad of reasons.
The Warm Market
The most expensive client to develop is the cold one, the client with no precious experience with the business engaged in a marketing campaign.
Interestingly, while the previous statement has been proven time and again, many businesses, in fact most businesses, pursue the cold call, the cold lead, instead of developing a relationship with and marketing to their warm market, the clients they have developed over the weeks, months, and even years leading up to the present advertising and marketing campaign…often at great cost, both in dollars and resources (also dollars).
The new media experience often includes blogs, forums, podcasts (a rapidly emerging and very exciting area for expression), social media platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn), and even certain extended mastermind groups (e.g., StomperNet, Infusionsoft, and others).
All of the aforementioned platforms, and a myriad of others, contribute to the viral effect created by the client’s positive experience and passed on….as they tell two people, and those two tell two people, and so on, and so on, and so on!
Just like the hair commercial: the viral effect of new media marketing!
Significantly, hundreds and often thousands will sing the praises of a business plugged in to and fully engaged in the new media, Web 2.0 experience. The new media marketing strategy, and the viral effect of such a marketing campaign, enhances the brand and creates opportunities for multiple sales over many weeks, months, and, again, years.
One of the best arguments for a business to engage in and develop a new media marketing strategy is the idea that outbound advertising, meaning intrusive, in-your-face, traditional advertising, has lost its influence on consumers. If in fact, it ever had much of one to begin with.
Evidence demonstrates conclusively that there has been a shift away from consumers simply accepting outbound advertising (i.e., newspaper, radio, Yellow Pages, junk mail, etc.) as something they must endure in order to make an intelligent purchasing decision.
Again, the data suggests that consumers are engaged in search driven buying behavior, they are taking an active role from beginning to end. Google has become a verb.
As in:
“To Google” or “I ‘Googled’ it the other day and then went out and bought the car I found online.”
Consumers are making buying decisions based on Internet research, “Googling,” and on referrals provided by followers, friends, and connections they have met online.
Interestingly, it has also been demonstrated rather conclusively that consumers are more inclined to take the word of a like-minded peer online, even if they have never actually met them, than to buy into the corporate-doublespeak, the outbound advertising spiel launched at them, often in invasive fashion, by traditional television ads (restroom breaks and trips to the fridge), radio (I change the channel, that’s why we have so many buttons! Right?), direct mail (making a comeback when done effectively but most is cat box filler), and newspaper advertising (expensive and impossible to track, also for the cats and even the bird cages). I hear newspapers are also good for cleaning windows.
New Media Marketing has a myriad of advantages over traditional, outbound advertising!
This trend will only continue over time, as millions find the Internet daily, hand-held connectivity is increasing exponentially, and the following trend continues:
*The Yellow Pages grows mold in the closet! (see the video)
*iPods, MP3 players, and CDs replace music on the radio!
*People get their news via the Internet…never to open a paper again! (except as liners and for windows!)
The fact is, there is still a place for outbound advertising but it will never be what it once was…the consumer would probably never allow it anyway!
To succeed offline, in a traditional brick and mortar business, or online as an affiliate, in an e-commerce “store” or in any number of other ways, new media marketing must be understood and implemented, particularly in this economy and with consumers growing wiser by the minute.
The combination of a down economy and an educated consumer means if a business, any business, isn’t fully committed and equally engaged in the new media marketing process…they may not make it! Or at the very least, the business will lose a lot of money, money they could have been making and spending to make more money.
The choice is an obvious one…or so one would think. Interestingly, people resist change, even business people, and even when the advice and service is quite affordable. It is human nature to resist change. It is also in the nature of most businesses to fail in the first 10 years…the decision seems a simple one…or is it?!
It is certainly the profitable one:
New Media Marketing works!
Contact me anytime for comments and questions…or just leave them here!
Prof John P J Zajaros Sr
216-712-6526
216-539-7412
johnz@ultimateinternetimage.com
PS, For a no obligation inbound marketing consultation, including a new media strategy assessment and a complete competitive analysis, call me at either number above. Or email me for more information. Call 24/7 the machine is always on.
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