Network Media And Marketing
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In the media world, picture is everything. Today’s graphics hype and promotion bet, it is hard walking a journal. Media can offer a less expensive advertisement to businesses who require to promote in our journal. However, this would reduce the quality. On the other hand, to reduce the quality and increase quantity is a common trend, although it does not increase the ad’s effectiveness. It makes it simpler to sell, because business owners have a hard time comparing an ad’s effectiveness against the number of issues printed, and the number of issues sent to the recycling middle. However, understanding the basics can mean the difference between success, and failure, in a tiny business. Regional magazines are, arguably the most effective marketing medium today, as effective as television, sixty percent more effective than radio. Still, advertisers do not understand that the regional journal does work because the quality is so high. Lower the quality, and the effectiveness is lowered. Advertisers are distracted by distribution. The newspaper empires are built on the distribution myth. Here is an excerpt from a conversation at a media meeting. They had a comic situation happen recently. My salesperson was at a call trying to educate a restaurant owner on the benefits of regional journal sales. The restaurant owner kept repeating newspaper stats. One hundred thousand copies, over ten weeks, is a million people that see my advertisement. Frustrated, the salesperson kept trying to make this person see that only 300 000 people, including kids, lived in the area. Where were the imaginary million people coming from? Then they tried to explain that most newspapers are returned each evening, and that it is important to produce these wasted newspapers, so the paper will have distribution incase something large happens. Finally, they tried to explain that most people only read 5% of the newspaper. Not everyone who buys a newspaper will see his advertisement. In truth, this newspaper with a distribution of 100 000 would have the same number of viewers as our regional journal. The salesperson shook his head and left the restaurant owner believing that a million people would see his advertisement. This is an example of the elderly adage, ‘they will always do some things better than you.’ One of the largest mistakes new entrepreneurs make is in thinking they have no competition. They forget the indirect competitors. A trade journal may be the only journal in the area, but there's several newspapers in town, and one marketing newsletter. It is important to compared prices and distribution to your target audience, not spamming. There may be no direct competition for a trade journal, but, there is competition for the advertisers’ dollar. This is how a business owner needs to look at competition. Not as people doing the same thing they are, but people going after the same funds. This matters when choosing the media type for marketing. If a newspaper spams 100 000 people, but only 50 read your advertisement, and a trade journal mails to 1000 people, but everyone reads your advertisement, and people buy because you have reached your target market, then the journal provided the better deal. This means Wait a Minute needs to compete against the local cable company and radio stations. They are indirect competitors. To compete it is necessary to find ways to make the VALUE of our product better than their product. This brought us to an issue. With cable, radio, and newspaper ads as our direct competitors, it was necessary to make positive the quality of our journal, and the graphics, was top notch. They needed to meet the CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS. The customers will judge or product against those they expect from the competition. Value and customer expectations are the two most important factors to think about when doing market research. Example from a new concierge service’s marketing plan. Do they go to the business section of town to do our research or discover a plaza that does not mind us bothering their customers? Do they phone people? Or, do they send out a mailing? A concierge service was one I thought about beginning. I started my business plan with ‘my’ idea about what I thought would work. Then I did market research, checking out the people I thought would be our clients. I found a marked difference in the service they wanted, and the cost they desired to pay. They wanted a guarantee that lunch would be served in 30 minutes. They tried to explain that they were not a pizza delivery service where they had a couple dozen people with separate routes. The potential clients had a difficult time understanding our fee; they saw it as a tip and wondered why they wanted such a high tip. They wanted people to deliver food, pick up mail, take their laundry, and other services, at all times of the day and night. This was not an issue. An issue rose when they decided they were to be on call 24/7. The idea that they would magically appear the moment they called intrigued them, and stressed me. After two months of research, I decided that a concierge service would not survive long in our area. Brainstorming with other business owners, and learning more about marketing, will help you select what media will serve your tiny business best. |
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