A fundamental marketing principle is Market-Message-Media match.  You have to find the right audience (market), create a message which resonates and have a mechanism to get traffic.

Which brings us to the subject of media.

Choosing the right media is a strategic decision which will make or break your business.

So with the plethora available including TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, trade journals in the offline world, and Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube being the predominant online players, what do you choose?

Actually, a better question is when.  When should you choose particular media?

It comes down to where in the buying cycle your prospects are.

Urgent need & relevancy:

A client’s a professional fire consultant.  People slapped with Fire Orders (where there are large fines for noncompliance), do a Google search and his ads come up right at the top.  Most of his business comes from here.

He’s targeting the 3% of prospects who have an urgent need and are ready to buy right now.  His ads are highly relevant and advertising in the local paper trade section would be a waste of money.

But what about the additional 30% who know they have a problem, but don’t need to solve it right now?

You’ve spent money advertising.  They’ve hit your website, had a poke around and then left.  Stuff gets in the way, they get distracted and you’ve potentially lost them forever.  Wasted money.

Unless…

You have a way of reminding them you exist.  Showing targeted material that highlights your expertise, building up your credibility and trust factor.

One effective way is online remarketing/retargeting.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the effect.  Looking for a printer on a retail site?  Abandoned a shopping cart?  You’ll see ads for that printer following you around as you browse the web.

Most of the time the ads are blatant and obtrusive.

If selling services, there are far more subtle and effective ways of utilising this strategy.

Realise while people are researching, your goal is to set the buying criteria in your favour.  You do this via educating prospects as to what they should be looking for in a solution and why you’re the best choice.

You accomplish this through providing educational content in the form of video, articles, whitepapers or podcasts, each one designed to build up your authority status and trust.

But you need a way of getting this material in front of them.

Retargeting allows you to show ads (in the form of videos/articles/podcasts) to only prospects who have visited your site and taken some action that signifies interest.

I’ll illustrate with a client who’s a stockbroker.

We predominantly run ads in Facebook targeting people interested in investing, share trading etc.

The ads are a mix of articles and videos designed to attract and educate prospects who are already equities investors.  That 30% who are actively looking for a solution to getting better returns while minimising risk.

Only prospects who engage with the articles/videos are then shown further ads encouraging them to join a free weekly stock tips list.

Those that do are now shown ads for a paid subscription.

Paid subscribers get shown ads for a portfolio review and then given the opportunity to become clients.

Each stage is designed to build intimacy and trust.  Draw them in.

This strategy is very cost effective as you’re not trying a scattergun approach and only advertise to people who’ve shown active interest rather than “everyone” out there.

I’ve just glossed over the strategy here.  If you’d like an in-depth strategic review of your authority and trust building activities and help building campaigns, call me on 0414-913-334.

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