Is Traditional Advertising still Effective?

In the last few weeks have you responded to an advertisement delivered by your mail carrier?  Have you made a purchase solely due to an advertisement you saw in the newspaper?  In the last few weeks while shopping for a product or service, did you let you fingers do the walking in the yellow pages?  In the last few weeks did you “search” for that product on the Internet?  Before making a purchase did you read an online review?  Did you ask your friends for advice about a purchase you were about to make?  In the past few weeks have you forwarded to a friend a link about a product you were thinking about buying or the link to a product you just purchased?  Have your friends reciprocated?

Social Media is a lot more than Facebook and Twitter.

It’s about finding and being found.  It’s about sharing information; information that may mean nothing until that moment when someone; anyone is looking for that information.

The Internet is a repository of information which can be found through search.

Advertising is quickly losing it’s effectiveness.  We pretty much ignore ads; especially those with no meaning to us.  Because it’s impossible to micro target on mass media, a good portion of your mass advertising budget is wasted.

Need an example?

Every single drug ad that runs in the 6pm network news.  Unless you have ED, high blood pressure, heart disease or osteoporosis those ads mean nothing.   But if you do suffer from any of the above, will you ask your doctor about a prescription drug you saw on TV?  Or will you research treatment options for the symptoms you are having?

My guess is the latter.

If you own or operate a company put yourself in your customers shoes and ask yourself these questions:

If you were shopping for your own product or service, where would you seek out information?

What words, or phrases would you type in that “search box” when looking for your product?

How would your search words or phrases differ as you move down the sales funnel from preliminary research to a purchasing decision?

Then think about how you are allocating your precious marketing dollars.

Posts on Twitter, Facebook, You Tube and more do mean a lot.  Especially if those posts are unflattering toward your product.

Are you offering enough information on your website to offset the negative information that may come up when a customer or prospective customer is searching for you product and service?  Are you asking your best customers to sing your praises online?  Are you publicly engaging with those who are bashing you on social media sites, reviews and blogs?

How much of your marketing budget are you allocating toward Search Engine Optimization and Social Media strategy?

The Super Bowl and the Olympics come and go.

Search can be working for you 24/7.

Did you find this blog post through a search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo?

I rest my case!

This Google Commercial was seen about 1.2 million times BEFORE it aired on the Superbowl

I enjoyed this parody commercial as well.  What do you think?