or interact with your business? What message will reach out to your target customers and allow them to begin to build a relationship with your organization? Choosing Media Finally, with target audience and message in hand, it’s finally time to choose the medium or media to “transmit” your message from you to your target audience. Without all of the other marketing elements in place prior to media selection, you’ve set yourself up for failure before you even send the message. I’m the first to admit that media selection is drastically different now than it was ten years ago. Today, marketing messages can be crafted for the local newspaper – and a coordinating message can be placed on a Facebook® page. Or on a blog. Or on Twitter. Or on a web site. Or on YouTube. Or through a photo album on Flickr. Or maybe on yard signs or at a local event. The options are diverse, accessible and affordable to many. Sending the Right Message I believe marketing messages should be overwhelmingly social and that the media through which they’re sent should encourage opportunities to interact and build relationships. Any media, used correctly or in concert with a Social Media, can accomplish this end. To be sure, however, the best messages will fail when sent through a media mismatch, and the best media (new or old) will fail if the message doesn’t resonate. Thinking back to my Michigan seminar audience and the gentlemen who asked the question, “Should I advertise in the local newspaper?” I quipped back quickly, “You’re asking the wrong question.” I continued, “I have a sneaking suspicion that at the end of the day, your problems have nothing to do with the local newspaper and everything to do with the message you put in it.” How about you? How will your marketing look in 2010? - GJB Marianna Hayes Chapman is a nationally-recognized marketing coach, trainer and speaker at Team HALO. Marianna and her husband, Andy Chapman, advise clients on a broad range of marketing-related decisions including the crafting of exceptional marketing messages for new media and the social web. See www.facebook.com/TeamHALO or www.halobusiness. com or www.twitter.com/resultsrev.
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