Which Marketing Channel is Best for Your Business?

If you have a small business, you might be wondering which advertising method will work for your specific format. There are a number of channels available to choose from. You can use anything from email to your personal website to try to promote traffic to your business, but deciding what to say and how to say it is often challenging. There are limits to language. It’s important to try and find out what you can do to overcome them.

Years ago, before dozens of flavored water products lined the shelves of supermarkets, a popular gotcha show set up a table in a super market and asked shoppers if they would taste two samples of water. One was touted as regular water and the other as “calorie-free” water. The “gotcha” part was that both samples were tap water. Surprisingly, a fair number of shoppers said they did not like the aftertaste in the calorie-free water. Many said they were surprised at how good the no-calorie option tasted and asked if they could buy some. This was a spoof, but you can learn a great deal about consumers from this clever diversion. For consumers, seeing the product, hearing the sales message and tasting the samples affects their experience of the product, the brand, and their own consumption.

Which Marketing Channel is Best for Your Business?

According to Oren Frank, global chief creative officer at MRM Worldwide and contributing writer for AdAge Digital, Wittgenstein once said, “What can be said at all, can be said with clarity.” Graphics and media both impact our thought process. Using visual aids and strong ad copy transmitted via the best medium for your target audience solidifies your message and resonates with the consumer.

Building Your Own Website

Advertising on your own website may be the best channel for you. You can get free websites, but the benefits of choosing a web hosting service normally outweigh the fee. Web hosting provides a professional platform with customer service and technical support to keep your secure site online and available.

Combining a reliable website with expert copy writing, target driven marketing tools, engaging site development, and graphic capabilities allows you to put your visualization strategies in motion.

Email marketing

Email works well for businesses that already have a following. Mass emailing to thousands of recipients without knowing if they need your service is basically shooting in the dark—hoping for positive results. Without some dynamic visual aids, many emails may be overlooked or misunderstood. Trends indicate transactional marketing—sending emails after a purchase—are driving repeat business.

Social Media

Using Facebook and Twitter provides an opportunity to reach thousands of potential customers. Many companies are using social media as a means to open a dialogue with potential clients and keep their customers informed about promotions and new products. Establishing your presence in the market with attention grabbing graphics and word art can lead traffic to your site through links. It is a fairly inexpensive venture—free beyond copy writing—but your target audience is still very broad. There’s one recent development for narrowly targeting audiences on social networking sites. According to an article in AdWeek on June 19, 2012, LinkedIn is offering marketers the ability to target specific groups of followers. There is a fee for this service, though.

It’s important for you to carefully consider your target audience and their specific concerns as you decide between these different options and they way that they’ll look and read. If you sell products that will appeal to a younger demographic, then social media may be the way to market your company. If your ideal customer is older, however, they may not have social media accounts. Or they may even have trouble navigating the internet at all.

There is a marketing solution for every customer, but you have to take the time to identify it. So experiment, be clear, and always, always, always keep the client in mind.

About the Author

PrintRunner
PrintRunner offers online printing service based in Van Nuys, California. They specialize in supplying discerning clients with superior print stickers, business cards, posters, postcards, and other products at affordable rates. Get a FREE copy of their sample kit now and see for yourself.