Four Ways to Create an Effective Media Mix

For example, Web pages can carry deeper content and more complex communication than many media forms, while outdoor ads give a quick punch of information. Some media, such as direct mail, email and article placements, will help you tell your full marketing story, while others, such as online or out-of-home ads, can generate leads and drive prospects to seek more information.

Keeping Prospects Engaged: As customers move through your sales cycle, they may be motivated by different marketing methods -- cold prospects, for example, might respond to broadcast and print advertising, search marketing, and PR, while warmer ones respond better to direct mail, events and email.

Entrepreneurs who use just one or two methods to reach customers often have difficulty keeping them engaged and lose sales to competitors who make consistent contact using a wide variety of media. By choosing an integrated media mix that meets the varying informational needs of cold, warm and hot prospects, you can maintain frequent contact without boring or annoying them.

Becoming Part of Daily Life: An integrated marketing campaign can follow your prospects all day long, taking advantage of multiple touch points. In the earlier example, you saw how a typical prospect might be exposed to media throughout the day. If this were your customer, you could choose from his favorite newspaper, magazine, cable TV channel, radio station and Web site to create an integrated mix.

By choosing just print, out-of-home and online marketing, you could be part of his life morning, noon and night. What better way to achieve success in the new year?