 Here at Copel Communications, we’re often asked, “What’s the best way to reach prospective clients?” More specifically, “What medium—such as LinkedIn ads, or direct mail, or whatever—should we use?”
These are great questions. This article will answer them. If things like your website, social ads, and eblasts are different media, then the way you combine them is called the “media mix.” It’s an advertising term. Don’t let it intimidate you. Every business that promotes itself in any way has a media mix. Of course, that’s not saying it’s a good one! We’ll start here with a basic assumption: You’re not Jeff Bezos. You don’t have unlimited funds. You need the biggest possible bang for your buck. How, then, do you proceed? First things first If you’ve read any of our articles, you’ll know that we’re downright passionate about taking a customer-first approach to marketing, and that applies to the media mix, too. If you start with your prospective customer, and really understand them, the elements of the media mix will actually fall right into place for you. What might at first seem daunting will quickly become straightforward. Let’s say you’re targeting logistics executives. You need to know everything you possibly can about them—the more, the better:
If you don’t have ready, and detailed, answers to each one of these questions, get them. Because you certainly can’t get into the tactical weeds of the media mix without them. But if you do have these answers, the next steps become progressively simpler. Know thy message If you know what’s keeping these people up at night, you also need to know how to flange your offering with it. We’ll assume, for the purposes of this article, that your offering brilliantly and uniquely solves these prospects’ problems. Then it’s simply (!) a matter of telling that prospect, in your messaging, how their life will be better with your company in it. So. You know their needs. You have a way to address them. You know how to communicate that solution, compellingly. Can’t you see how “the media mix” is now a really, really straightforward exercise? Carving up your options In today’s world, you have lots of choices when it comes to the media you employ. These include—and this is just a scratch-the-surface sampling, to get you thinking in the right direction—things such as:
As we said, the list goes on forever. And this is why it strikes people—people who approach it, list-first—as intimidating. There are so many choices! Which is the best one? First off, you should have caught the inherent error in that last question. It’s not “which one,” singular. It’s “which ones,” plural. You can’t have a “mix” with just one ingredient. Second, use your customer-first exercise, above, to begin your prioritizing. Are you into B2C (business-to-consumer) ecommerce? Then it’s hard to not consider Facebook. Is your business B2B (business-to-business)? Well then LinkedIn is hard to ignore. By the way, “Your website” is kind of an essential anchor to all of the above. It needs to be awesome, and quickly tell your story/motivate visitors to take action. (Far too many sites are hopelessly bloated. That’s the topic of a popular article of ours: “Your Website Is Too Big.”) Diving into details Once you know which troughs these prospects are feeding from, that’s where you go. It’s where you prioritize your efforts, and your spending. “Knowing what they’re searching for” will also inform your SEO (search-engine optimization) efforts, so that your site climbs the ranks in their search results. Some media cost more than others. It’s still expensive to buy a full-page ad in the print edition of The New York Times, even if that print edition isn’t long for this world. So make your best, educated decisions about how to allocate. A couple helpful pointers:
Get help There are businesses that are solely devoted to media buying and placement. We’re not one of them. If you’ve got the budget to use one, by all means, partake. Our sweet spot, for our direct clients, is for businesses who have the hunger and the wherewithal to do it themselves, with a combination of internal and external resources. If that’s you, let us help. We can help you answer the fundamental customer-discovery questions which underpin the media mix; we can also help you create killer materials that motivate those prospects to choose your business over others. Contact us now and let’s talk.
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