The pros and cons of marketing media

A successful marketing campaign depends on several elements. You need to create a marketing plan, determine your target market, and then decide the best way to reach those potential customers. Data from BDEX will give you great insight into who is most likely to be interested in your product or service. We collect real-time data based on actual customer behavior, from recent online activity, via store POS (point of service) systems, plus geofencing technology, which tracks when people have visited a physical store.

Choosing the right marketing media

Once you have your target market, you must choose marketing media that will give you the best results. Which ones you choose will depend on several factors, including your budget and the “personality” and preferences of your target market. The vehicles you choose to target millennial males will be very different than if you’re targeting women 65 and older. Targeted marketing media can include email, direct mail, social media advertising, mobile advertising, website ads, and telemarketing, among others.

Let’s take a look at various marketing mediums and discuss the best practices for each

Email marketing

Targeted emails deliver your message directly to existing or potential customers. Email campaigns are one of the most effective marketing vehicles, as the open rates for a well-targeted and executed campaign can be pretty high. According to Adobe.com, email open rates can be as high as 20-30 percent.

Here are more email marketing statistics from HubSpot.com:

• Consumers who purchase products through email spend 138% more money
• Sales emails have eight times more opens and clicks and can produce six times more ROI than other types of email
• Email is the third-most-influential source of information for B2B audiences

One thing to note is that you need permission to send emails. Every country has different rules and some are much more strict than others. For instance, the European Union recently enacted GDPR, which set new rules on how personal information can be used. If you violate the terms, your company could face fines or worse. Canada and the US also have their own laws. Basically, you shouldn’t send marketing emails unless someone has opted in or subscribed, whether the person provides an email at a physical store or fills out an online form. The alternative is to work with an Email Service Provider or ESP that maintains an email opt-in list. In this case, they can send the emails for you to their opted-in users.

Online and social media campaigns

Online marketing campaigns can include digital ads on related websites or blogs frequented by your target market. Online marketing can also include served ads that appear based on the online activity of your potential customers, including purchases or Internet searches. Your campaign might also include paid advertising on a search engine like Google. Basically, you pay Google to advertise your content to customers based on keyword searches, which captures them at the very moment they are most likely to take action.

Another effective means of online marketing is advertising on social media sites. These sites allow you to target ads based on factors like location, gender, age, marital status, and hobbies/interests. You can reach a relatively large number of people without spending a lot of money. Which social media site you choose will depend greatly on your target audience. Teens and millennials tend to use Instagram over Facebook, for instance.

Direct mail marketing

Direct mail remains an effective marketing medium, especially with certain target segments. For instance, senior citizens might not be online as much or be as tech savvy with their phones, but they are more likely to read their mail. A big advantage of this medium is that you don’t need any sort of opt-in or permission to send a postcard. On the other hand, your piece can easily go straight in the trash. This medium is also more expensive as you must pay to have the piece produced, printed (by the thousands), and then mailed.

Phone marketing

Although telemarketing has gotten a bad rap, phone calls can still be an effective method of reaching your target audience. It can be even more effective when applied to B2B marketing. However, be aware that there are regulations you need to follow in order to avoid fines. You must get permission in order to call cell phones. You also want to make sure your data is as up to date as possible. Check for things like a change of phone number or address. If you are calling a business, ensure your contact is still with that company or if they have changed positions. Generally speaking, businesses do have the ability to call past or existing customers.

An effective marketing campaign is all about determining your target market and then deciding which marketing vehicles will best reach those people. Each vehicle has pros and cons, so you must decide which will be the most cost-effective and give you a better ROI.

BDEX can help you create an effective marketing campaign by providing real-time data via over 700 million device ID connections and more than 900 billion data signals available through our proprietary Data Exchange Platform. Call us at 917-410-6616 or send an email to info@bdex.com to start putting this information to work for your business.