V is for Variety

The best marketing strategies involve engaging the most variety. This is a useful tip, even if you’re a small business owner without a lot of budget. However, if you are just starting out, and even if you’ve been at it for a while, heed this advice: be in as many places with the same message as you can. For our larger clients, we incorporate Television, Radio, Print, Online, Direct Mail, Outdoor, Public Relations and Social Media strategies into one annual marketing plan. This is what works best. Why? Because, this way, you’re reaching your audience in a variety of ways to let them know who you are and what you have to offer.

But maybe you’re not quite ready to jump into all of these just yet. In that case, it’ll be a good idea to understand each type of marketing, as well as the outlets that will work best for your business.

Broadcast

Television and radio elevate your brand in a big way. While it may seem that the market is shifting away from these traditional forms of advertising, broadcast marketing should still be an integral part of your overall strategy. And brands who still utilize broadcast tend to be perceived as reputable and established companies by consumers.

To illustrate how these media forms can be used, take the example of a radio spot we created for Atlantic Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine, which highlighted the progress of its new facility:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXwfzc9W99c

2015 was dubbed the “year of video marketing,” with online video accounting for 50 percent of all mobile traffic. Many marketers (over 90 percent, in fact) are using it for online marketing, sales, and communication with their customers. Frankly, we’re amazed by the video frenzy, and we enjoy incorporating it into our own strategy, too.

Outdoor

Like broadcast, outdoor advertising is another terrific outlet to market your brand on a larger scale. From billboards to banners and buses to farmer’s markets or festivals, creating eye-catching, memorable messaging can be just the thing to get you noticed by the right people. We love designing billboards for our clients – we don’t have a lot of them in our market (which is partly why they can be so impactful), but even in urban settings, it’s hard not to notice a really well done board.

We created this one for Piscataqua Savings Bank, who celebrated the 25th Anniversary of their Kids’ Bank this year:

And a fun outdoor campaign for Piscataqua Landscaping Company:

Print

With all the marketing and social media options available today, many people and marketing pundits are advocating that traditional print advertising is becoming obsolete. Shame on them! Advertising is still one of the best ways to shape your message and support your brand. A good strategy at the local and regional level can really boost sales for small and medium sized businesses and professional service organizations.

A good ad — one that makes an effective impact — has a strong headline, utilizes well-written supportive body copy and incorporates a clean, inviting design. So while print advertising still holds a solid place in any good marketing strategy, it has to be well crafted. And, ideally, your print advertising is conceived as a campaign with a single-minded focus to each ad and an overall objective or goal for the campaign. So, before you ask your local paper or magazine to create a “one off” ad for you for free, make sure you give some thought to what will resonate best with your target audience, and how you can inspire them to take the desired action you’re seeking.

We’ve done a lot of work with Piscataqua Savings Bank over the years, honing in on who they want to reach and creating messages that resonate with that audience.

Direct Mail

Direct mail is getting stellar results these days. If your business is looking to focus in on a specific audience or geo-location, this is the kind of marketing to pay attention to. Not to mention, it’s a great way to get creative and add a personal touch to set your organization apart from the pack.

We recently completed a direct mail piece for one of our clients, Seacoast Orthotics & Prosthetics. Incorporating the phrase, “Let’s Work Together Hand in Hand,” we mailed ice scrapers and informational brochures, which were sent out to help forge new physician relationships for SOP.

Online

There’s no questioning the importance of online and social marketing. In fact, HubSpot’s 2014 Inbound Report found that over 80% of surveyed marketers believed social media has become an important lead source for their business. Between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, the opportunities for reaching consumers are quite substantial.

As an engaging way to reach out to our own following on social media, we created a Patriots contest on Facebook that has gained excellent traction. Campaigns like these don’t need to be specifically related to your business’ products or services directly; like ours, they can cater to the community in terms of geography or users’ interests.

The best marketing strategies involve engaging the most variety. While Broadcast and Outdoor place your brand in front of the masses, Print, Online and Direct Mail allow you to drill down a bit further on your audience. And, simply put, when you apply great creative across all these mediums, your sales will go up. Are you ready for that?