What form of advertising do you use for your business?

That was our discussion at CAB! We had people from the radio and print here, and, people who use these forms of advertising for their business.

The question was "Is print dead?" The consensus was no, but, it has been dying over the past few years with the digital side of marketing showing up in a BIG way! Scott, who owns a monthly magazine here in town said that his company has started offering digital to their plan, so they can reach a larger audience for their clients.

Which is where the discussion went. Depending on your audience, will determine what form of media you will use: radio, TV, Social Media, Digital, Print, or a combination of all. I will let you decide what works best for you, but I will share some of our healthy debate. (And share a bit of information that has me second guessing my opinion).

Kim Martin shared an interesting piece of information about radio that I hadn't thought of. Sponsoring a charity, or some other type of sponsorship seems to get better recognition for a business because the name of the business is mentioned more often, and people always love supporting businesses that support some form of charity or kids program or something along those lines.

I know for myself, I tune in more when I hear about something going on and a business is sponsoring it than I might hear or pay attention to an advertisement. That's just me, tho.

Most of the businesses that were represented talked about using a combination because their demographics have a wide range. Debbie Wiggers, fro the Race Track says her customers are not always the ones on social media, so they need to advertise in a magazine or newspaper.

But Taylor Scalli said most of her clients were younger and prefer digital or social media. But, then again, we are seeing a shift of the younger gerneration is starting to wean themselves off of their phone 24/7. We will see where that ends up.

I had a discussion afterwards with GFDA, and we talked about who do we advertise to? Do we advertise how we like to be marketed to? Or where our customers are? Case in point - If I say I don't like country music (which is totally false), so I won't advertise on that station. But, if my clients like country music, shouldn't that be where I am at? Some food for thought, right?

What the end result was, all avenues of marketing have a place, so pick what works for your business and your customers and "go for it"!

When we were discussing print, someone brought up about the Tidbits magazine that was around years ago and how they loved that. It could be found in restaurants and waiting areas around town. Fun fact!!! I owned it and ran that for a couple years! I had no idea that is was appreciated so much.

Back then we didn't have the ways to track that sort of thing, but we do now. I sold that business back in 2000, but, it might need to be revived with things from the past coming back to life, like clothes from the 80s! (Not that I trust numbers that are put out by every organization that says they have all these impressions for their marketing, which, by the way, every group says they are the leaders. So, you don't know who to believe. Sometimes we just have to ask the question when we have a new customer and do the old fashion method of asking how they heard about "us".

As I said earlier, I will leave it up to you the best way you market to your clients, but, if you want to comment here and share your thoughts, it would be much appreciated!

Join us each Wednesday from 9:30-10:30 at Al Banco at the Commons, 112 Central Ave, in Great Falls. Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy the discussion!