A question that keeps popping up on our Ideas Marketing webinars and my personal conversations with coaching clients and colleagues is: Should I do social media if my clients don’t?
I usually answer along these lines…
Absolutely – we all can benefit from doing social media as a means to promoting, educating and selling to our online customers.
Two Basic Scenarios
And there are two basic scenarios here…
- Your current clients may not be on social media now and they may be in the future. If you publish regularly now you’ll be comfortably found in the future.
- Alternatively, your current clients may choose never to be on social media. In this case you have two more choices… Find similar clients who are online. This could be as simple as publishing your great content and attracting your audience to you.
Or, post online anyway and then convert what you publish into a format that your clients can use offline. For instance, post blog articles online and then put them into a printed newsletter. Similarly, compile a series of articles into a book that you print offline. And, apply the same thinking to webinars or recordings – share them online and provide them on a CD or USB stick for your offline customers.
Online Mindset
This may not be such a shift in mindset as you think. Remember, a lot of internet marketing principles were borrowed and extended from direct marketing. And, that’s my suggestion, explore how direct marketing works. It will help you reach your audience offline and sharpen your impact online.
Production Costs
Also, be aware that you will have production costs for offline content so your economics may change. For instance, it costs nothing once you’re up and running to post a blog article. However, it may cost a couple of dollars to print and bind them for your audience. You may choose to absorb these costs into your business and pick them up elsewhere. Alternatively, the opportunity may be to charge for these.
