Marketing - Don't Forget The Basics.

I’ve recently seen a trend with large corporations and their ambition to jump on the social media bandwagon.  Companies are spending millions of dollars implementing campaigns that include social media, mobile marketing and better engagement to their target market. 

Are these companies seeing results or is this campaign a way of making the company seem interactive?

Why waste the dollars and time on a campaign that doesn’t attract the right demographic? To say you’re on Twitter? Great. I’ve seen your tweets their like spam on craigslist.

Companies are forgetting the basics of marketing; Product, Price, Place and Promotion.  Social Media vehicles like twitter and foursquare should be used to drive traffic to these not be stuck in rush hour.  I’m seeing many companies try social media and not see any results.  You have to establish the promotion or product before you drive people to the destination. 

Build the campaign around the 4 P’s of marketing, then reinforce the message and imaging with social media. 

SpotHero, a startup company in the Chicago land area has done a great job enforcing the four P’s of marketing while consistently engaging it’s demographics.  An interactive way to manage your parking, SpotHero allows you to buy and sell local parking spots in the Chicago land area.  Why not rent your driveway when you’re not using? Genius. 

http://spothero.com/

Let take a look at another company; Lawn Doctor.  This corporate company has deployed a marketing campaign to include various social media vehicles including Facebook and Twitter.  The issue is that all of their tweets and fan page updates don’t relate to the (yep you guessed it) product, price, place & promotion. Even if Lawn Doctor focuses on promotion it doesn’t alter it’s message to the demographic on the media vehicle.

I give Lawn Doctor credit for attacking a new media but in order to be more successful the proper promotion will make more sense. Facebook and Twitter are two great medias to promote a specific special or program, pushing customers or trends by using specific hashtags (#) and Facebook links.

I want you to focus on all the promotions you see for the next two weeks, whether they’re social or not. Take a step back and see if it was the right message, wording and imaging to attract your attention.  

Companies spend thousands of dollars for that first impression; see if it really matters to you.

-JG-