Social Media Marketing – Return on Investment? You bet!
15 Sep
Social media is transforming the way we do business and acquire customers. Old school marketers fed the public catchy marketing phrases and flashy graphics to get them to remember their brand or product.
The new gurus of marketing use the power of social marketing. They focus on building two way open conversations via Facebook, Twitter, You-Tube, Digg, Flickr, and blog comments.
Consider a well-directed and implemented social media campaign as a referral program on steroids.
Word of mouth spreads like wild fire, through the power of constant open channels of information. Your television commercial, print ad or radio commercial for your Sarasota business must be perfectly timed and placed to reach your demographic. Once the ad airs, it’s gone. With social media the conversation lasts and lasts. Search engines continue to spider that conversation long after the initial conversation. What if your customer wasn’t watching your TV spot that day, or didn’t even pick up a newspaper. Ooops. That money is gone.
Your referred customers are your most valuable “catches” and will most likely make a buying decision. Your return on investment (cost to acquire each customer for your Sarasota business) will be low, while the quality of the customer acquired will have a high value to your business.
Content and ongoing conversation drives awareness, today. Traditional advertising is still here, but open, two-way conversations are much more effective then one way communications to your audience.
Social netwoks don’t necessarily shorten the sales cycle for business but it does keep the information flow more open and allows for a deeper relationship than e-mail campaigns, banners, etc. Personally my business email box is brimming each day. I simply don’t have the time to open and read each one. Think about that before you invest or anguish over low open rates on an email campaign.
Repeat after me, social media isn’t just for kids anymore. Big business is paying attention, and so should yours. A smart social media campaign strategy should be in the hands of every Sarasota business!
