DIRECT MARKETING: CHAPTER 6 MEDIA: A DIFFERENT, MORE FLEXIBL

DIRECT MARKETING: CHAPTER 6 MEDIA: A DIFFERENT, MORE FLEXIBLE

The difference between traditional media vs. new media

Traditional media allows businesses to target a broad target audience through billboards, print advertising, television commercials, and more. In comparison, new media allows companies to target a narrow target audience through social media, paid online ads, and search results. Price-wise, traditional media tends to cost more than new media due to its broad targeting and advertising channels.

What is traditional media?

Traditional media includes mostly non-digital advertising and marketing methods.

Traditional media is:

Television advertisements

Radio advertising

Print advertising

Direct mail advertisements

Billboards and off-site signs

Cold calling

Door-to-door sales

Banner ads

Companies have used these methods for many years to reach consumers and motivate them to make purchases. Up until very recently, these marketing and advertising styles were very effective, and helped businesses just like yours make a profit.

However, as the needs and expectations of consumers evolve, marketing has no choice but to evolve as well. This is what has led to the rise of new media and digital marketing methods — and the decrease in popularity of some traditional methods you know well.

What is new media?

New media, also called digital media, consists of methods that are mostly online or involve the Internet in some sense.

These methods include:

Search engine optimization

Pay-per-click advertising

Content marketing

Social media

Email marketing

Many of these methods have been around for several years, but have only gained prominence recently. So when the topic of traditional media vs. emerging media is discussed, it’s somewhat misleading to call these methods “emerging” as very few of them are new.

Having said that, these marketing methods are continuing to change as time goes on. Best practices for these methods are currently dependent on their sources, as opposed to depending on the attitudes of consumers. But over time, we may see another shift as consumer feelings change toward these methods.

Media Selection

When deciding which media to select for promotional purposes, firms must consider a number of factors in order to maximise the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns. In this article we briefly discuss seven of these factors.

The diagram below summarises the factors which should be considered when selecting media for your marketing campaign

Budget

What is your overall budget for advertising? Will your budget give you the coverage you want? A firm that has a limited budget for advertising will limit the amount of coverage certain media can provide. You will need to strike a balance between budget and coverage.

Campaign Objectives

One factor that will influence the budget and coverage question is the objective of the campaign. If the objective is to raise the brand awareness of the firm amongst the teenage market then this will influence any decisions you make above. You may need to spend a little more on certain publications in order to meet your objectives.

Target Audience

The media you selected is obviously influenced by the target audience. A firm must select media that the target audience is associated with e.g. the magazines or paper that they read, or the social networking site they use.

Focus

What is the message focus going to be? Will the message be emotional and work on guilt or will the message be clear cut and say why the firm is better than the leading player?

Readership of Media

What is the readership of the media you wish to select? Readership is the number times a publication has been read, so if I pick up newspaper on the train, read it and leave it on the train and that same newspaper has been read by 10 other commuters, the readership in total is 11.

Circulation of Media

A firm will need to find out what the overall circulation of the media chosen is. So how many publications are sold, and exactly who reads them.

Timing

When do you want the advertising campaign to start? Is it specific to a particular time of the year e.g. Easter or Christmas?

So when selecting your media for advertising you need to take into account all of the above factors into account to maximise the success of your advertising campaign. The importance of a particular factor will depend on the campaign in question so it will be important to prioritise the list in a manner that suits you and your campaign.