Erika Pryor, Ph. D., a professor at Denison University, asked, “How has digital media changed your overall marketing and communication strategy?”
The change is in who we are talking to. Now, as marketers, we are talking to the individual buyers directly. Before, you had to hope that someone would see your ad or read a story in a newspaper. Now, you can load up your press release with the proper keywords, send it out over the wire and your potential customers can search the keywords, find your information, and if there is a good call-to-action, they might do what you want them to do!
However, that also means that when you are using social media, you have to keep in mind that your reader is processing the information on a very personal basis. That means that you have to remember that you are talking to one person–even if many people are reading it.
The exciting thing for a Creative Communication Guru such as yourself is to remember that we are talking one-to-one while at the same time talking one-to-many!
I put a link to our blog talking about how Sub Zero is doing it right.We also have to remember that each person is reading or watching on their own platform, so you have to remember to have your website ready for mobile viewers. I have a link to that information as well!
Once again, I want to reiterate how social media has changed business dramatically. Just relying on putting a press release in the paper is not enough. In fact, that alone will most likely not be the most effective way to reach an audience. With that agreed, we also have to be conscience to talk to the individual as an individual. Personally, as a consumer I wouldn’t want to be addressed as part of the wolf pack. Even though many people do have the same needs, those needs vary. So choosing one’s words concisely will make consumers/buyers feel as though their needs are not cummulative.
I believe this article is so significant for our class learning material since we need to completely grasp the concept that through marketing and communicating through social media, you need to reach out to your overall audience through a personal connection to an individual person (buyer). This is such a difficult task to successfully complete, but it’s so key for profitable marketing and PR. Learning how to communicate through strategies such as specificity within the keywords or overall wording you use is a very important thing to recognize if you want success.
I would agree with Sandra and Nikki that it is important to utilize these new marketing and PR techniques such as social media as a means to reach your target market on an individual basis. Customer relationship management is a huge part of this.
In my opinion, this article is very important for all the marketers and advertising people out there. However, based on this article we know what we need to do, but the real dilemma is HOW will we do it? What will be the way that is personalized enough but will not “attack” the consumer/customer too much. For example, when I have gotten phone calls about some magazines the person on the other end of the phone seems to know or think to know too much about me. For me that is too much.
So how will the marketers and sellers know how much personalization they need to use? There is a very thin line between enough and too much when it comes to marketing and selling. In my opinion, that is one of the reasons that makes marketing and advertising such a fascinating area to work in!
I agree with Kira,
It is difficult to find a balance between “enough” and “too much”. A good idea would be to produce interactive marketing where participation is possible but not required. Interactive marketing and advertising will allow consumers to form the right amount of connection to the product/ service.