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Advertising Today Mr and Mrs Person in Business Where you advertise is entirely up to you. The question is why do you advertise there. Yes, you must advertise for no other reason than if no one knows no one buys It is your business, your money and the evidence out in the market place is overwhelmingly that your potential customers are no longer where you thought or have been told they were. The market in which you advertise is now very fragmented, no longer are potential buyers or the people who may have an interest in your products, captive and dependant on the media of the 20th century In 1990 the world was changed forever In the last two decades a revolution has been occurring in how any business attracts customers and advertising is about attracting customers. It is no longer 1990 but: Let's Start With: 1945: The publication of the paper "As we may think" by Vananeer Bush. Important because it set out the reasons why we needed an improved communication system 1969: Development and the implementation of various networks were taking place and by 1969 they knew the Internet as a communication network, worked. 1990: The Web was created by Timothy Berners-Lee (now Sir Timothy) he brought into being the World Wide Web (www) and chose the Internet as the Communication Network to run the Web on. He also developed the first browser 1995: The release of the first commercially produced browser "Netscape" 1998: The Web was mainstream, with many different browsers and many websites 2000 plus: The social networking sites, Facebook, My Space, Bebo, Linkin and others, all for communicating and hanging out with friends online. 2006: Twitter, the social media or micro-blogging site, messages of 140 characters. All these developments building on what had gone before and there is no stopping. Witness the rise of the mobile phone and the applications they now carry. People are connected and connecting on-line. We await the release of Google Wave and the changes it will bring. The development and implementation of a new operating system heralds a change in the mindset of how we and potential customers access and receive information. We are at the start of one of the greatest sociological changes in history with more changes to come and these will affect us not only as individuals but also our dealings with customers and they with us. There is no stop the world. And any person in business who considers they are not or will not be affected is not facing the reality of the 21st century. Yes, people will still buy retail but how they receive advice as to the products offered, or where they see the offerings, or how they hear about the availability of goods is no longer dependant on the media of the 20th century. People are on-line and people in business must follow. It is now 2009 and without much fear of contradiction, it can be stated that New Zealand lags behind the rest of the developed world. Is this a problem, not if you do not want the country to progress? But such is not in our or the interests of the country or town in which we live Already a large number of people have left for overseas, at 24% we have the highest number of citizens in the OECD living and working overseas, have they already understood the realities that come with the lack of progress in a country's development. History is marked with towns, cities and country's that once had thriving societies but who failed to change when the world changed. Who can change the direction we are headed, people as individuals, not really, Governments, they can only set the agenda, people in business, possibly only they can. People wish to buy, business people wish to engage in trade but if the people in business are not prepared to go where the people go, which is online, there can be no progress. If goods are not bought and sold and money changes hands there is no advancement. Production without sales is a failure, for a sale to be made; a prospective purchaser must have knowledge of the goods produced. This became very evident with the Industrial Age. With mass production came the need to advise the masses and various agencies came into being to advise or act as mediums between the producer and buyer. But that was the Industrial Age model For the last two decades we have been in the midst of a revolution, there is no longer a controlled environment. As in let's start a business, put advertisement in the newspapers and on the radio and if you have more money advertise on TV and once a year put an ad in a telephone book and customers will arrive. This mindset will no longer work. To succeed in today's world will require a major change in how people in business communicate with their potential customers. We are now in the Internet Age. I am not suggesting that anyone and everyone in business should suddenly stop all their offline advertising and put up a website, thinking that is all they have to do. The dot com bust proved that to be a fallacy. What I am recommending is think. Think not where you are going to advertise but the why you are going to advertise with that particular media. It is your business, your money and the evidence out in the market place is overwhelmingly that your potential customers are no longer where you thought they were. The 21st century requires the business tools of the 21st century You will require a website as a starter and your own domain name. The website should be built following the guidelines, policies and rules of the major Search Engines. (You want to be found in the search engines don't you?) A website that you or someone in your business can and will update. This will place you at Web 1.0 level which was the 1998 model, you cannot go further until this mastered. Everything builds on what has gone before and you do not want a shaky foundation. After you have your properly constructed website it is time to think further ahead. If your site follows the best SEO practices your business offerings should show well in the search engine result pages and very likely to attract a customer but what if the potential customer who does not know the product exists, they are not likely to search for it. Hold that thought for a moment and think blogging. Blog – a web log, people writing and publishing their thoughts and views, often viewed as something other people do, not the concern of a person in business. How wrong so very very wrong. When a person in business advertises they publish their views and thoughts. An advertisement states "I the business person consider you should buy from me because we have the products you want". The advertisement may not look as though that is what it is saying because of the pretty pictures and the fancy fonts but buy from me should be the reason for the advertisement. If you stripped away the pretty pictures, the fancy fonts and cute jingles from your ads, is the message there and if not its time to rethink and ask what are you paying for. For a person in business a blog can be a very simple cost effective way to get your message out into the market place, to tell the potential customer what you have in store and how you can assist. It is not a hard sell; the message should be personal and authentic Look around your shop or business I am sure you can write one hundred words about your products, the new stock, the specials, customers thrive on information. They come back when you update the information. And where will you publish this blog, on your website of course, (or as a separate entity / blog) that is why you or someone in your shop, business or organization should be in a position to update your website very quickly. A website tends to be a formal presentation of your business whereas with a blog you can be less formal and a chat with your customers. But there is more, the social media has arrived, viewed and used by millions of people each day- and you should be there. Your words published and seen in the social media can prompt a viewer to visit your website / blog or store or make contact In two decades the controlled environment has gone, we now live in a world where the customer is no longer captive to the media of the 20th century. People are on-line and any one in business to survive will have to learn the new ways to attract and keep them. Contact Firstsearch |