Does Online & Social Media Marketing Really Work?

This may seem like a strange question coming from someone who owns a business that is marketed 100% online but given a few recent jolts of reality in the off line world, I’m wondering just how effective marketing a business online is.

Let’s get some perspective here…go out into the off line world, have a coffee with your average Joe or Jane and ask them just what they do on the internet. I think you’ll be surprised.

Here’s what we’ve found when we do this:

• The majority of people on the street have no idea what a blog is nor follow a blog regularly.
• 99.999% of them have no clue what RSS or a feed reader is (even if they follow a blog in some cases).
• Many of them are not sophisticated users of the internet at all and restrict their usage to the odd foray onto Facebook or searching for basic information on Google.

Faced with those results, it’s a good job our target markets aren’t your average Joes & Janes!

As bloggers, business owners and relatively savvy internet folk, it’s easy to forget that we’re the ‘internet elite’ – we know what RSS is, we follow and even subscribe to blogs and we utilise the tools of social media to market what we do.

Why do we do this?

Because supposedly we *have* to and because we’re told that this, the internet and social media, is *the* new age of marketing and business models; if we’re not with it, we’ll fail.

The problem is that the majority of the population are not business owners nor entrepreneurs – they don’t use the internet in the same way as we do, so in some cases it’s not hard to see why business owners try and fail in their online and social media marketing efforts.

In some cases and for certain target markets, there is nothing as effective as a solid off line, traditional marketing strategy forming the core of your marketing activities backed up by (not solely based on) online tools.

Whaaaat? I hear you say…but how can someone who markets a business 100% online say that?

Let’s be honest. A great deal of our business comes from referrals – in fact we actively encourage referrals from people we identify as “centres of influence“.

It’s true that we’ve never met most of our referrers and centres of influence and so our online efforts have helped create this trust and these relationships but if we look at where our last few big projects have come from, it’s largely from referrals not the blogs, the ezine nor any of my other online networking activities.

Indeed the last three clients I’ve spoken to didn’t even know I had a blog (yet alone 4) and had no idea of my online activities (soon put that right!).

So is it a big, fat waste of time?

No – for our business and target market it’s not; for us it’s about walking the walk as well as talking the talk and we need a way to demonstrate to clients that we do indeed know what we’re talking about. We don’t just create logos, blogs and websites for clients because we can, we do it because we believe in and can demonstrate how effective these tools are when utilised properly.

And before you ask, yes we do turn clients away! In fact, one of the questions I ask prospects who contact us is “Do you actually know why you want/need a blog or a website?” and if I don’t think it’s right for them and their business, then I will say so and discourage them from wasting their money.

But will online and social media marketing work for you?

The answer is “it depends”. It depends on many things:

• Your target markets
• What you’re offering
• Your strategy and goals
• Your expectations
• The time & effort you have to implement your strategies
• Your knowledge, expertise and experience

There are lots of people waxing lyrical about the power of social media and online marketing (I know, I’m guilty too) but the cold, hard truth is that it isn’t for everyone, it won’t work for every business and you really do need to know what you’re doing.