A lesson in traditional marketing
I met with another entrepreneur, who like me, offers social media consulting to businesses. And I learned a really good lesson. He had with him a flyer and he was going to spend the day walking around PDX handing that flyer to businesses to advertise his services. And initially all I could think was, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
The reason: I’ve gotten so used to social media, and even the phone that it hadn’t occurred to me to think about using his approach. He also has a decided advantage of being about a decade older than me, and so his experience includes that concept of taking a flyer and walking door to door with it.
And it makes me realize as well that it’s rather easy to discount tried and true methods of marketing when we have the glamor of new technology in front of us. Don’t get me wrong: social media has value and can do a lot for your marketing, but as I’ve advocated before it needs to be complemented with traditional marketing. I’ve done that with written letters and cold calling, but actually beating the streets with a flyer? It’s not something you see as much anymore, and yes that’s what makes it precisely so valuable to do. When people aren’t doing something, and yet it can be effective, its worth your time to do it.
I consider this a lesson learned for me, as well as a valuable recognition of how important it is to meet with other people and learn what they are doing, that you could also be doing. Find out what other businesses do to stand out and see if you can adapt what they do to your own methods. You’ll be surprised at how well some of it will work and also how you’ll continue to be challenged in all the right ways to improve your business.
