Old techniques still good for marketing

Whether you're hoping to connect with social networkers or turn your business Web site into an effective sales machine, the techniques that are most likely to help you find and influence buyers on the Internet aren't much different from they were in pre-Internet days.

At least that's what conversations with two creative types who understand marketing today suggest.

"We've become a very visual society," says Adrian Dinu, describing a reality that puts the typical words-and-stagnant-photos Web site at a competitive disadvantage. The goal, Dinu continues, should be to persuade site visitors to "look at what your product will do."

"Think outside the box," Dinu says. "Do I show a picture of a shoe sitting on a table, or is it flying through the air on Michael Jordan's foot? - Do I show a picture of a car, or do we see a convertible cranking down the highway at 60 miles an hour with the driver's hair blowing?"

Dinu is co-owner of Post Meridian LLC, a multimedia production house in Schaumburg. Although we were discussing Web sites and materials that can be uploaded to YouTube and other social networks, Dinu's creative approach is similar to what creative types were suggesting when we all were cutting our marketing teeth.

Only the medium is new.

"Make your (Web) message entertaining and engaging," Dinu says. "Entice the viewer with a good story line and information, and relate (the message) to things that will interest the demographic you want to reach."

That solid advice is pertinent for creating a TV spot or a good print campaign - or, obviously, an effective web approach as well.

Jimi Allen, head of Jimi Allen Productions, Aurora, pretty much agrees.

"People are realizing how effective their Web sites can be," Allen says.

Even so, he maintains, "It's not the medium but the message - how the message has been crafted - that is important."

A visual guy who, for example, will suggest that clients use video links as part of an e-mail effort, Allen's approach to web marketing is based on design and organization.

"A good Web site is the difference between the phones ringing or not," Allen says. "A good site needs to communicate a feeling about a company. That takes a designer who can organize information in a way that (will make) people react.

"What I see most of the time is (reminiscent of) somebody sitting up all night writing the term paper they had waited too long to do," Allen says. "The information could be better organized and better articulated."

Allen is not as certain as many others that social sites are the place to be. "What's not cost-effective is spending money on social networks," Allen says. "They're not proven yet."

• Questions, comments to Jim Kendall, JKendall@ 121MarketingResources.com.

© 2009 121 Marketing Resources, Inc.