With the wealth of changes in the field of marketing and communications, along with the standards of the marketing mix from product development, pricing, distribution, and promotion, this area of the blog will concentrate on keeping you aprised of important information from the marketing and sales field.

Use Social Media to Extend the Life of Traditional PR Communications

There’s still a place for tried-and-true marketing tactics

You wouldn’t consider building a new retail location or conducting a national advertising campaign for just $15,000, yet that’s what some businesses invest in their web presence and then expect sales to come pouring in.

“Do the puny sizes of social media audiences strike you as a marketer’s dream come true? I’m not talking about total users. I’m talking about how many people actually read your blog posts, follow you on Twitter, or watch your YouTube video,” asks Lonny Kocina, president of Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies. “Yes, we have all heard the viral success stories, but how’s it working for you? Where’s the ROI? Where are the clients? Where is the lead stream? Is anyone even listening?”

As Websites, blogs and social media have taken center stage, many companies seem to have mentally pushed the traditional promotional channels to the wayside. Kocina is dubious about this tactic. “Is it possible, just possible, that by switching from old-school marketing to the new media you are putting your Clydesdales out to pasture and hitching your marketing plan to a team of Shetland ponies?”

New marketing concepts rarely work as well as we imagine. Kocina, who owns both an Internet company and a public relations agency, cautions business owners not to give up on the tried-and-true marketing tactics. “You need to keep a foot in both camps. And frankly, if I had only enough money to choose one, I’d choose old-school marketing over social network marketing in a heartbeat. It’s good to keep in mind that your company wasn’t built by the Internet, it was built before the Internet. As the saying goes  don’t forget who brung ya to the dance: Promotional channels such as direct mail, publicity and a crackerjack sales staff.”

Product news stories on TV, radio and in print are still some of the best ways to spark sales. “The reason publicity works so well is the size of the audiences and the media’s model for writing stories: heavy on the problem and light on the solution,” says Kocina.

In his book Spin Selling, Neil Rackham he advocates selling to the pain. No one is better at highlighting pain than the media. Their industry thrives on pain. And to paraphrase David Ogilvy, when you build a fire under someone’s chair, it’s much easier to sell them a fire extinguisher.

Kocina suggests that companies should stay plugged into real mass marketing by hunting down every publicity opportunity in the U.S.. “Of the four old-school promotional channels (advertising, publicity, personal selling, and sales promotions), publicity is and always has been the most powerful and the least expensive. If you read product biographies you’ll often find press coverage was a key factor in the product taking off,” he explains.  

He adds that traditional PR can get your product in front of your potential customers where you can give them a nice long explanation of the frustration (pain) your product solves. “Our big clients purchase around ten million publicity impressions per month, and they have been for years and years! Now that’s Clydesdale power.”

Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies helps clients deliver their sales messages to customers through promotional channels that are more in line with the way customers absorb information — like reading an article in a magazine, perusing the Internet or attending a workshop. To learn more about how to reach your customers when you have their full attention, visit www.KocinaMarketingCompanies.com, or follow them on Facebook by searching for Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies.

If you would like more information on public relations and social media, contact http://www.kocinamarketingcompanies.com/ or 612-798-7237.