+ Find the gaps in your marketing - 2

I am going to leave paid advertising aside for now - be is PPC, print, TV or outdoors. If you are doing it with great results, keep going. Irrespective, I would advise that you find your feet on at least a few social media platforms. Social media and even something like a blog has the reach and residual effect that advertising doesn't in the same way. Social media can also be long form or short form and therefore is suited for a quick snappy message on one post to a complete product guide on another, and everything in between. Social media allows you to serialise your content. for e.g. you can create a series of posts showing one product benefit or one customer testimony at a time. And the content remains on social media until you delete it - so customers can save it, send it to their "friends" and refer back to it as and when they want. This could be a double edged sword - tread cautiously. 

Look at your audience attitude and behaviour towards media consumption. Gone are the days of families sitting together and watching prime time TV. Back in the day when this used to happen, your advert would come on TV. And if there is a need and your advert is effective enough, all the decision makers were right there to make the purchase decision. Today?

Sitting for hours with a newspaper or magazine for hours - gone! Well, depending on your audience. I am sure some of us still do it. These are also those who prefer the feel of a physical book in their hands. Audible - Amazon's audio book company peaked a revenue of $200 Million in 2023.  You think the sit. down - book in hand trend is changing? "On the go" has been on the go for a while. You know that. In Audible's case, I am not debating that Audible provided a fantastic appeal to their eyesight deficient customers, but books on CDs have been around for some time now and my point still stands. 

The point is that social media when used correctly can target your prospects at every step of their customer journey taking them from discovery of your proposition to purchase. 

Which social media platforms do you use? This needs to be guided by a social media strategy. A social media strategy is a tactical devise and therefore by definition is short term in nature. It has to be. If nothing else this 'short term-ness' can be attributed to the mercurial temperament of the medium. I would advise that you hang your social media strategy on a firm brand positioning. This way as social media trends change, you can make tactical changes to the way you communicate, but the foundational uniform narrative and the singularity of thought with which you communicate stays rock solid.

If you haven't already, I would highly recommend building a database and implementing a robust email marketing programme.