5 Ways you CAN ignore the internet.

Posted by Colin Clark on Apr 27th, 2009 | View Comments home title

Where is the ROI in social media?

It seems like every marketing professional I know of is saying, “You can’t ignore the internet, any more.” I think it’s obvious that I believe online tools hold endless potential for marketing, but I’m willing to concede that it’s not the only way to get your message out. The problem with offline marketing is that in order to be effective and measurable in the same ways as online marketing, it is often expensive and time and resource consuming.

So you don’t want to blog. Not a problem. A great alternative would be to put out your own print magazine once a month. You could have all your employees write articles with helpful tips and best practices for your industry then send it out free of cost to all your customers. They’ll be extremely impressed that you’ve gone to the trouble of providing them with excellent information in a readable format. The only disadvantage is that this approach is going to be ridiculously expensive and time-consuming. You’re not going to want to go with cheap printing or graphic design. Bottom line – it’s going to eat up a sizable chunk of your marketing budget.
You’re not interested in generating leads from online sources. Just hire a salesman to go out and cold-call people. Phone cold-calling is pretty tough these days, but there’s no reason you can’t send someone out door to door. You’ll probably want to send your new salesperson through some training courses and you’ll have to provide a vehicle and gas. You’ll also need to shell out a decent salary (commission only salespeople rarely succeed – too much pressure – they won’t bring you good clients). If you’ve got 70-80 grand to spare in your marketing budget, this might be an option.
You don’t need to use online tools to establish yourself as an industry expert. Why not just go to trade shows? You’re probably already doing this and not getting as much out of it as you should be. Studies have shown that as many as 80% of leads generated from trade shows get lost in the mix. You’re going to want to invest in a new customer relationship management software system if you really want to make a dent through trade shows. Plus, you need to hit ALL the trade shows, not just some. If you’re not properly staffed to do this, you’ll probably need to hire more people, plus there’s the cost of travel, print materials, SWAG, and of course a nice display so people know you are serious.
If you want to create buzz around your message you don’t need to be using social media. Just hold an event! Rent out some convention space, pay some industry leaders to speak, serve food and refreshments, and watch the cheddar roll in. The first thing you’re going to need to do is dedicate someone from your staff to doing nothing but event planning for at least a month before the event. Make sure all your people are promoting the event to your customers. Be careful not to annoy them, though.
You’ve got plenty of ways to educate your customers without using social media. You’ve got a customer service department don’t you? They answer calls all day long. There’s no reason to invest time and resources on an online campaign while this system still works. There can’t be that many dissatisfied customers or else you wouldn’t still be in business, right? Just to be sure you might want to send out surveys in the mail and hope that some of your customers will fill them out. Don’t forget to follow up with them by phone. Remember that it’s costing you money every time one of your people has to pick up the phone.

The key value in marketing through social media is that it fills so many needs at once while being cost effective at the same time. I urge you to consider the real costs associated with running your business and think about ways that some of them might be circumvented through using social online technologies.