Download Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing Yvette Eisenhart

Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
Yvette Eisenhart
Kaplan University
GB601: MBA Capstone
Unit 2 Assignment
Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
12/12/2012
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Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
Abstract
Effective marketing is a requirement for successful market saturation. There are many
marketing avenues available for companies to utilize including social media. Most companies
use a variety of advertising outlets at once to reach a larger audience; this is called a media mix
(Cadotte, 2003). Social media trends have grown tremendously over the past few years and
many companies now utilize this avenue of marketing. This paper will discuss leading edge
trends in integrating social media into traditional marketing and advertising campaigns.
Additionally, this paper will discuss the market segments of the Marketplace simulation and
make recommendations for incorporating social media into the market segments.
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Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
One of the biggest challenges a company faces is how to market their product. Once a
target market is identified it is then necessary to do market research to identify key factors of the
market including competitors and demographic information. Planning an advertising campaign
involves deciding on where to run your advertisements and how often to run them. The goal of
the marketing campaign is to reach the largest audience possible (Cadotte, 2003). A marketing
strategy must consider how many people are going to see the advertisement to determine if it is
cost effective.
Selecting a marketing avenue that will reach your target market is important. A good
example of this would be if a company is marketing fishing poles they would not want to
advertise in Vogue magazine. Obviously the target market for fishing poles is probably not
reading Vogue magazine. A better choice for this company would be Field and Stream
magazine. Not all products are this easy to determine a marketing strategy for.
There are many marketing avenues available such as magazines, newspapers, television,
radio, and social media. Traditionally companies utilized avenues such as magazines,
newspapers’, and televisions but advancements in technology have opened up an entire new
marketing arena. Social media has become the new popular method of marketing and has
opened up many doors for companies to read their target markets. Social media provides a very
large area to utilize for brand awareness and market saturation. Most consumers use some sort
of social media whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or MySpace. Research shows that
70% of adults use some type of social media (Melodika, 2012). Additionally, 88% of businesses
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Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
utilize social media for advertising (Melodika, 2012). Having such a large audience is beneficial
for marketing campaigns for obvious reasons, because it reaches a large amount of people. The
large audiences received on social media sites are also very easy to monitor and research
(Whaling, 2011). Consumers have the ability to “like” an ad or to comment on an ad which
gives valuable feedback to the company to use in implementing future ad campaigns (Whaling,
2011). The feedback can be used to see what ad campaigns are effective and which ones are not
and what customers are asking for and valuing the most about your product.
Integrating social media into traditional marketing and advertising campaigns can provide
a leading edge trend in marketing. There are several ways in which a company can successfully
integrate social media into their marketing mix. It is necessary to ensure that you are providing
enough information for consumers to be able to get the product they want. Carefully planning
your social media ad is important (Jansen, 2011). The ad must provide sufficient information but
should not contain too much information to overwhelm the consumer. Include social blog keys
to your website and other advertisements so consumers can easily access information about your
product on their preferred social media outlet (Jansen, 2011). If consumers see a traditional form
of marketing that contains a social blog key they will most likely look that product up on that
social blog to gain more information. Lastly, promote events via social media such as Facebook
and Foursquare (Jansen, 2011). These events can offer coupons or special discounts or even
promotions such as “mayor ships” on Foursquare. These promotional events are not only fun for
the consumer but capture their attention which is a primary goal of any marketing campaign.
The Marketplace Simulation for this quarter involves crafting a marketing and
advertising strategy to capture market shares. Team B has selected three brands to market which
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Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
are the Workhorse, the Mercedes, and the Traveler brands. The Workhorse segment is the most
popular segment of computer and will be the highest marketed. The Mercedes is a high
performance computer catering to the needs of executives and is high priced. The last segment is
the Traveler segment which is a practical computer targeting consumers who travel frequently.
Each of these segments targets a separate market of customers and the marketing campaigns will
be unique to the applications and components offered for each segment.
Specific recommendations for incorporating social media into the market segments are to
communicate with the target market, be consistent, differentiate the ads for each individual
segment, and to promote events such as sales or instant rebates. All three segments can be
marketed using social media. The Mercedes and the Traveler will be targeting business
executives such as those who utilize professional social media sites like LinkedIn. Using
LinkedIn to market both of these segments will be most advantageous reaching a large area of
the target market. Each ad will differentiate the unique components and applications offered for
each of the Mercedes and the Traveler. The Workhorse can successfully be marketed using more
basic everyday social media sources. The Workhorse segment was made to cater to the needs of
a variety of office workers but is not a top of the line computer and therefore is priced cheaper
than the Mercedes and the Traveler segments. The advertising campaign for the Workhorse
must reach office employees and business professionals and must cost less than the marketing
campaign for the Mercedes and the Traveler. We stated earlier in this paper that when creating a
marketing plan it is necessary to ensure that the campaign is cost effective. The Workhorse
segment could be advertised on Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter; all of which cater to a variety
of workers many of whom would benefit from this segment of computer.
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Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
Using traditional methods of advertising will be advantageous to all three
segments as well. Magazines such as business magazines and newspapers will reach the target
market for each segment as well. It will be necessary to research each target market for each
individual segment to provide differentiation among the different products. Advertising each
segment in the appropriate magazines and journals will be necessary for success. Included in
each of these traditional advertisements will be a social media logo indicating which social
media avenue each segment is targeting. Consumers can visit that particular social media arena
to obtain valuable information on the segment. The social media link will also provide event
advertising such as upcoming sales and current rebate offers that can be used as incentives to
entice consumers. Providing the specialized and differentiated marketing for each segment will
ensure that the specific target market for each segment is reached to the fullest capacity.
Conclusion
Effective marketing is a challenge for companies in today’s competitive markets. Social
media has presented itself as an effective avenue for marketing campaigns. Most consumers
utilize one form of social media therefore using this avenue for marketing campaigns is effective
because the ads will reach large amounts of the target market. There are ways in which
companies can incorporate social media into traditional methods of marketing as well such as
social media logos. Because the social media is being utilized more and more by consumers and
businesses it is necessary to include this method of advertising into a marketing mix.
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Integrating Social Media into Traditional Marketing
References
Cadotte. (2003). The management of strategy in the marketplace. Knoxville, TN: Innovative
Learning Solutions.
Jansen. (2011). 7 ways to integrate social media with your marketing plan. Retrieved from
http://www.networksolutions.com/smallbusiness/2011/12/ways-to-integrate-social-media-withyour-marketing-plan/
Melodika. (2012). Announcing new social media training class: trends & planning for 2013.
Retrieved from
http://www.melodika.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=514534&Itemid=54
Whaling, H. (2011). 5 ways social media has changed marketing campaigns. Retrieved from
http://mashable.com/2011/05/12/social-media-change-marketing/
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