Columbus Ohio Website Design and Affordable Small Business Marketing

-by Tricia Williams

Jerry Maguire: Yeah, yeah, no, no, no. Show you the money.
Rod Tidwell: No! Not show you! Show me the money!
Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!
Rod Tidwell: Yeah! Louder!
Jerry Maguire: Show me the money!

Ah, Jerry Maguire. One of the most entertaining movies ever, and in my opinion, some very powerful words. I mean really, Tom Cruise had me at hello too.

Once upon a time, when we were a spry start up business with a full belly of dreams and lofty goals, ‘Show Me the Money!’ was our motto for every day living.  We wanted to see it in every corner and we wanted to know how everything we did was going to show us the money. Some things didn’t show the money quite like we wanted them to, like our genius 15 second advertising bit on AM Talk Radio but eh, you live and you learn. Andrew (the bossman) is a very ’show me the money’ kind of guy. He’s a numbers guy and wants to see an ROI on just about everything.  Imagine my dismay when I was hired here to do social media marketing and he kept saying ‘what’s my ROI?’. I thought I was two steps out the door before my chair with no arm rests got warm. He was reluctant to hire me from the beginning because he just didn’t think social media was worth it’s weight in salt. He wanted to see the results from social media RIGHT NOW. I had to explain to him that social media really doesn’t work that way all the time. It’s about brand awareness. It’s about relationships. It’s about having your clients at hello.

Being a business, I’m sure you have a constant eye on the money too. Most people who sit down at the table with me to discuss a social media marketing strategy say the same thing to me- ‘Show me the money!’. Just like I did with Andrew (who very quickly came around and trusted what I was doing because, well, it worked!) I explain that it’s not really about seeing an ROI immediately. Social media marketing is brand awareness in a whole new way. Social media is a great way to get your name, your brand, your service out there into the world for people to see and become familiar with. I know it’s hard to really get behind a form of advertising when it’s brand new and you’re not sure how it will work for you,  but look at traditional marketing methods- how do you really know a billboard is driving traffic to your business? Sure people see it, but that’s about all they do. The design may stick in their heads but rarely will someone pull a U-ey on the freeway to high-tail it to your business. Still, people will pay a boatload for a billboard, not really sure what they’re going to get out of it or if it’s doing anything for their business. Plus it’s outdated and B-O-R-I-N-G. Seriously, I think I just fell asleep writing that paragraph.

Social media offers you so much more than a one way picture on the side of the road- for a fraction of the price. A social media campaign is necessary for any business to build a solid brand in this day and age. Instead of thinking of social media part of your marketing budget, and a vital part at that. Going back to the billboard example, instead of reaching only drivers going west on Route 33, you can reach anyone in the world with a Facebook account (if you do it right, of course). You can interact with your clients- find out what they want, what they care about, how they feel about your brand, and really hone in on a better customer experience. You can create a strong and well recognized brand through social media by connecting to your market directly- let them get a feel for who you are and what you stand for. With the right social media campaign and the right tools, social media efforts will pay off. It takes time to build a solid campaign but when it’s developed you’ll be able to say to it “Show me the money!” and it will. I don’t think it’ll have any googly eyes though, but you never know.

Ps- Please join our LinkedIn group! There’s even more good Social Media stuff there: tips, talk of the trade, idea sharing and networking! http://ow.ly/163JE

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 2:06 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.