CHOOSING THE RIGHT MEDIUM FOR YOUR MESSAGE
Now you know what your customers want and you think you know how they think, you need to maximise your opportunity to connect with them.
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1st of all, your website: is your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and keyword search now in sync with the messages on your website.
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Do your customers even use social media? How long on average in a day?
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Do your customers use the traditional media? EG: Do they read the paper (do they get their news online?), watch TV (or do they stream all of their content?), listen to the radio when they wake up, while at work or on their way to and from work?
Remember you can’t be all things to all people. You want the biggest bang for your buck, trying to reach a specific person can be hard – but you might just be able to reach those around them who can then influence their choice by way of word of mouth.
Most importantly is that you need to ensure that customers in your local area can engage with you easily.
For example:
Make sure that your website mentions:
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Your location
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Your phone number
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Your opening hours
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Who you are
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What you do
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And includes the information that you uncovered as part of your Market Research, answering questions about how your product or service does, what you say it does.
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And your social media does all of this and more, you need to spend LOTS of time interacting with prospective customers or putting up content to make that connection and make them want to do business with you. From hashtags to posts, your social media content needs to be on message all of the time.
All of these things are vital when it comes to local searches, so Google can see your page is specific to your local area.
Make your print ad mention:
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Your location (shown on a map or just the address)
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Your phone number or website
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What it is you are offering
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How much it will cost
If you are lucky, your print ad will have between 2 to 20 seconds for people to take note of it as they flick through the pages. 2 seconds if there is nothing else that catches their attention on the page, and 20 seconds if they decide to start reading an article (research shows very few people read an entire article). You have 1 opportunity per week (if in a weekly paper) to get your message across.
TV ad's should mention:
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Your phone number (if it is easy to remember) or your website
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What it is you are offering
If you are very lucky, people (if they are watching during the commercial break and not off getting a coffee or going to the toilet) won’t have the TV on MUTE when it’s ad break time. Your message needs to be clear. To the point. And worthy of them acting on it. You have more opportunities for your message to get across, but only if people are watching the screen directly.
AND your RADIO ad should always mention:
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Your phone number or website
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What it is you are offering
Radio industry research shows that people wake up to the radio, listen to it while getting ready for their day, on the way to work, at work, and on the way home again. The more they listen, the more times they will hear your message. This re-enforcement from a friendly, trusted source of information means that your message will be at the top of their mind when the time comes to use your product or service. Also... you can't mute or skip the ads. Now, does that seem like the right type of investment for you?
There are other mediums but these are the core ones you should consider to get your message out in.
Remember: 1 core message per commercial can make more impact than a shopping list of what it is your business does. See our previous post HERE about that one message.
Next time we look at Structuring Your Message, and finally Polishing Your Message before you Present it.
