Businesses are talking about ‘change’. Expanding, contracting and diversifying; moving away from old markets and embracing new ones.
We see this reflected in the new ways businesses want to communicate.
The media landscape is changing at an astonishing rate.
The range of internet-based communications platforms is increasing rapidly while traditional forms of print and broadcast media are evolving; in most cases they now straddle both the online and offline camps – albeit with varying degrees of success.
Many of the businesses I come into contact with are feeling bamboozled by the choices available to them.
They want to know how best to channel their marketing budgets and they want professionals to guide them through the mind-boggling array of channels to find the ones which best suit their needs.
A surprisingly high number of businesses are still spending their budgets in an ad hoc way. They often do so knowing it is the most expensive and least effective approach, but curiosity seems to get the better of them.
These are exciting times and it is sometimes easy to see why they have been tempted to go off on a tangent.
But the basic principles should still apply: What are you trying to achieve? Who are you trying to reach? What is the best way to make yourself heard?
What would you like to say? Are your messages credible, relevant and interesting?
Your business may be ready to embrace new media but are your target audiences on the same wave length?
Whether you use traditional forms of communication, the internet, social media or a combination of channels to communicate with your clients or influence referrers – like all things in business, a pragmatic and strategic approach often delivers the best results.
