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Off-line Resources
This course is about marketing on line but it is worth spending a couple of minutes considering other media.
According to an Icelandic proverb, every man enjoys the smell of his own farts. It is well known that women never emit any personal vapours, one cannot guess whether they would enjoy theirs too. People will savour anything they have created, however pleasant or otherwise to anyone else. So, if someone takes out an advertisement in a local paper, even if no-one else notices it at all, they will certainly look at it themselves and believe it has appealed to customers.
If you have customers who advertise, anywhere they are trying to be seen is somewhere you can be sure to be seen by them. Trying to reach "ordinary consumers" with one of a page full of ads in the back of a specialist magazine seems to me a waste of money - but advertising to the people who advertise there is another matter!
For those of us offering business-to-business services and supplies, other peoples's newspaper and directory advertisements can be a great way to find potential clients, especially if the advertisement itself gives clues; maybe you can spot a gap in the list of services they offer which you could fill for them. FOr example, as somone who helps people use the Internet I have become quite good at spotting adverts that lack a web address.
The Outwith Principle inclines us to focus on where people are focused themselves. The more specialist the context, the fewer people will see your advertising but the more they are likely to respond. If that proposition is good enough for those who have spent millions working out they should advertise their family cars in the breaks in Formula 1 on TV then I'll buy into it and think about advertising at specialist events and in specialist publications too.
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