If you don’t recognize the headline of the blog, then you either don’t like summer blockbuster movies or don’t have any female teenage relatives – it’s a famous quote from the bestselling young adult book series The Hunger Games, which is now also a successful movie series.
So why is it appropriate here? Because the quote is said to “pledges” about to be sent into a vicious “last man standing” style competition where all but one of 24 will end up dead; the odds sure better be in your favor, because you’ve got a 95 percent chance of death.
That may seem like a dramatic comparison to make, but it’s oddly appropriate: if you stick with traditional marketing methods, your business is probably as good as dead.
Traditional marketing has run its course, and is no longer a viable or cost-effective strategy for marketing your business. It worked in the past, because it focused on the only viable methods for successfully marketing your business: print ads, TV and radio commercials, yellow pages, and billboards.
But in this age of digital domination, those old marketing tactics can be a huge waste of time and money. They are static and unadaptable, as well as expensive.
Take an ad in the yellow pages, for example: First of all, do you even know anyone who uses the yellow pages anymore? Do you still have a copy of the yellow pages in your home? Even if you factor in the YP website (the most popular yellow pages website in the world), you’ll find that the yellow pages offer a very small and specific audience: a whopping 71 percent of YP users/readers are age 55 or over.
So you start with a small, segmented audience; now let’s imagine your yellow pages ad isn’t effective. You’ve just spent a lot of money on an ad that didn’t work, to market to a narrow audience. Does that sound like a recipe for success?
It’s time to abandon traditional marketing and embrace digital marketing. With digital marketing, you can cut your costs dramatically while still reaching an enormous audience. Today, Google searches play a huge part in consumer buying decisions, and traditional marketing isn’t going to help you attain a high Google rank.
Instead, you need to shift your focus to inbound marketing. Inbound marketing is all about bringing the customer to you. Through the use of blogs, social media and content offers, you attract the kind of potential customer you want via internet searches.
Don’t leave yourself at the mercy of the odds. Use inbound marketing to become Katniss Everdeen and you’ll triumph in the Hunger Games of the marketing world.
And if you don’t understand that reference, seriously, go watch the movie. It’s pretty good.
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