Old Hat Marketing

Content marketing is undoubtedly a useful tool in the marketing kit, and social media is a great way of communicating with your audience. But while marketers focus on these techniques and leave others behind there's an opportunity to increase the visibility of your own voice in the market.

The soothsayers have long since given up on physical direct marketing and have grown weary of predicting the demise of email. Social media is apparently the only way to go now. But just compare these three channels and think about who owns your contact lists. For direct mail - physical or not - it's you, but for social media your list is held and managed by profit-making (or at least hoping to make) companies who have shareholders demanding that they make more returns from their subscribers.

With the stampede towards social media as THE marketing channel, email and direct marketing have taken the back seat. I no longer receive reams of flyers through the post, and my email box does a good job of filtering out the absolute rubbish. So the physical post and email I do receive is much more likely to receive my attention. Hmm, isn't this what we want as marketers?

So give email and direct marketing a thought - you're in control, you own your channel and it's really not such a crowded road than the more trendy streets of marketing at the moment.