You Can't Reach "Em Like You Used To!

Ok, bare with me here...I'm really not trying to be negative!  We as retailers today, simply cannot reach customers the same old way we always have!  The days of your store putting a full page ad in the local newspaper and getting rich by saturday are long over! 

As of late, I've developed dubious feelings toward many of the traditional media outlets such as the local daily newspaper, yellow page ads, placemat ads, etc.  Not that these medias don't still work, but I don't feel that they work as well as they once did.  I do feel that print yellow page ads are a complete waste of money...(I do think online yellow page ads are great!)

Todays younger consumer doesn't look in the yellow pages (they do a google search instead) and they certainly don't read the local newspaper (their daily news comes to them on their iphone, ipad or the homepage on their laptop)!

New media that we retailers need to explore for marketing today would include but are not limited to:  websites (that have been optimized by search engine optimization), email marketing, text marketing, voice broadcast (to your inhouse customer base), youtube videos, ezines, social media such as facebook, twitter and more. 

My favorite form of media to use is still direct mail, of which, you can test its effectiveness easily and at low cost.  Direct mail is also easily and superbly supported by all of the other media listed above.  It works great, hand in hand with radio, cable tv as well as other traditional medias.  I suggest you really look at developing your customer mailing list if you haven't already and make direct mail your main focus and develop other marketing methods around it. 

If retailers keep using the same old tired methods, (newspapers, yellow pages, etc), they simply will not be around long...today's consumer gets it's daily dose of media from other sources and as retailers...we need to take notice and explore these lucrative options before its too late!

"Til Next Time,

Bill Warren,
Warren Marketing Systems
http://www.warrenmarketing.blogspot.com/
http://www.hudsongoldmine.com/
828-729-1020
hidden69@charter.net