Four Ways to Promote Your Vermont Business

Buy, Beg, Bug or Earn.

One of my fav “smart guys” on the national stage is David Meerman Scott. I got a chance to hear from him in person a few years ago. This post called “what we all really want is attention” may have been the piece that coined the above phrase. It’s worth a click.

Those are your options when trying to bring eyeballs to your business.

You can buy ads or spots to feature your brochures alongside lots of other brochures. Generally referred to as traditional marketing.

You can beg the media (hopefully with some skill) to write about you with varying levels of success. Generally referred to as PR.

You can bug people, which is the sales department.

Or you can earn eyeballs by being relevant and using today’s tools to constantly publish useful information that brings customers to your doorstep via social media or SEO. This is the essence of new media.

Should you put all your eggs in one basket? Nope. You should however take a good look at your opportunities and expenditures to get modern. There is still a place for traditional marketing. The slice of the pie it deserves has shrunk for most. Adding integrated PR and new media marketing to your mix is my goal. They are the lead tools in building your inbound marketing traction. This is how you become relevant and maintain it.

My background is unique for the small businesses I serve. I’m “tradigital” when it comes to PR and new media having started out before wide internet adoption and then evolving rapidly with it. Since every influencer, media outlet and stakeholder is highly reachable via social, these two activities are now deeply connected and don’t exist without the other.

Strategy development, web video production, press relations and release drafting, social media management, advertising and staff training are key offerings that combine the PR and new media trades. Any of these activities can be easily integrated into your e-mail and event strategies. It should all jive with your budget and interest level. Thankfully PR and social media marketing is typically more cost effective than buying ads or creating a sales team. Silver bullets are a joke. Laugh at those people.

Still curious about the different between outbound and inbound? Hubspot can always help explain. Here’s one of a million slideshares they’ve published. A little confused? That happens. That’s why there’s a local helper. Let’s chat. Contact info and testimonials.