In our web-connected world it’s hard to remember what promotions and advertising looked like before the Internet’s popularity exploded.
The Old Days
It’s difficult to think of twenty years ago as being “the old days” but that’s what they are, especially where PR is concerned.
In the “old days” if you wanted to market or advertise your products you could count on having to spend a lot of money.
In the “old days” almost all marketing and advertising was done through the buying of media ads: radio, television, newspaper and periodical (magazine).
In the “old days” direct marketing was done via the USPS and it could take months to find out whether or not your marketing campaign was actually working.
In the “old days” if you wanted to know what someone thought of you or your business, you had to ask them or hope that someone would tell you what people were saying. It was almost all hearsay and rumor.
In the “old days” a good and expansive marketing campaigns were something that only bigger companies could afford. Smaller and independent businesses had to rely upon word of mouth and highly targeted small campaigns because it was all they could afford.
Today, there is still traditional advertising and it costs a pretty penny but there are lots of other marketing and advertising methods available to companies and businesses.
Today, a social media campaign costs only as much as the person you pay to run it because, in the springtime of 2013 social media is largely free (unless you want to pay for extra pointed advertising on the systems).
Today you can tell people all about your business without ever speaking a word or communicating with anybody one-on-one. Your website does it all for you.
Today direct mail costs only what you pay for someone to write it because it can be sent via email.
Today, monitoring what people say about you and ensuring that your reputation is solid and good is as easy as checking out your online reputation by doing a Google search. You can actually see what people are saying instead of having to rely upon hearsay. Consider online rep and check out this Company Overview of Reputation.com, Inc. to see why rep.com might be a good place to start.
Today it doesn’t matter what the size of your business is—putting together a solid and effective marketing campaign is just as easy for a single person to put together as it is for a big corporation.