Why Social Media and Cross Media Marketing Matters

6 years ago

Social media has revolutionised businesses, helping SMEs to directly communicate with customers more effectively than ever before. With so many different platforms and channels to produce work for, it can feel overwhelming to know which will be the most effective for your business, and help to generate you the greatest ROI.

If a business doesn’t keep up to date with Social Media they risk losing a lot of business and a whole generation will not engage with them to the levels that would be expected.  However it is always important to take a multi action, cross media approach in order to get your marketing message across to the widest audience possible and for it to be fruitful in its efforts. 

SME's need to utilise every marketing avenue possible, with that in mind you have to be aware that spending so much time online takes you away from your local business sphere. Print marketing (posters, brochures etc...), exhibitions and local networking events put you back on the local map, and gets your business building a powerful, local fan club. Typically you'll have a higher rate of conversion in your local area in comparison to internet based traffic. Your local marketing will act as the strong foundation allowing you to drive your profits and grow your business, especially when you consider local shoppers tend to have higher spending habits than new customers. As a general rule of thumb people typically like to spend their money locally. Printing is the perfect way to take advantage of your local connections.

With so many companies and brands using social media producing masses of content every day, it can also be difficult to have your content seen over your competition. Below we’ve listed out our top tips for social media marketing for SME businesses.

Consistency is key

Most businesses utilise more than one social media platform, creating different forms of content dependent on the channel it’s being posted on. Social media marketing is a fast-paced form of marketing, requiring regular content updates across multiple outlets, and, as a result, can lead to inconsistencies in terms of branding. As your marketing strategy should include both on and offline communications you need to ensure your social media branding coincides with your offline marketing strategy such as your printed and published materials.

It is crucial, therefore, that every time you post on any of your social media channels or produce marketing materials which will be printed, you maintain consistency across your logo, imagery, and tone of voice. The more effective you are at doing this, the quicker your audience will begin to recognise your brand and associate you with the product or service you offer. This means that next time the person is ready to make a purchase, they will consider your brand to buy from.

Multi-channel matters

Don’t think that because you’re using an online social media marketing strategy, you can neglect other channels like printing, email marketing, offline events and PR. Social media marketing is effective as part of a wider marketing strategy, and can be used in several ways.

You can run teaser campaigns on your social channels, highlighting upcoming activity offline, such as an event you’re running. You can run crowd-sourcing campaigns, asking your online audience to vote for preferences from anything including a new product or service you’re looking to launch, to the colour of a much-loved product.

Consider your social media marketing as one of the most effective ways to generate quick responses from your audience, but be aware that your customers will need to see your brand across multiple channels and in multiple media forms from brochure printing (http://printuk.com/brochure-printing) to e mailers,  Adwords, Billboards etc… in order for it to be an effective campaign.

If you’re looking to streamline your social media marketing to make it more consistent, you will need to ensure your brand, marketing message and logo look the same across all platforms, including your printing and graphic designs this will help you develop a brand that is instantly recognisable!

Attached Media

About PrintUK.com

We are PrintUK.com We are a leading online printing company that specialises in high quality printing and design services. Our ambition is to be the best print and online design company, so we invest heavily in technology and software development to ensure faster turnaround times, sharper pricing and higher quality. We are here to help your marketing budget go further without compromise. We continually invest in technology to improve upon our quality, production efficiency and turnaround times. Any cost saving is passed onto our customers which allows us to offer incredibly competitive prices. We predominantly serve Design Agencies, SME’s, print buyers, local authorities and large corporate businesses. Our website and business is designed to help businesses promote themselves cheaply and easily through print and for larger customers to help stretch those limited marketing budgets. We accomplish this by providing easy to personalise design agency quality templates accompanied with cheap high quality printing. We believe that well designed, high quality print, delivered into the right hands on time has and will continue to have an important role in the marketing mix. Print UK is here to help achieve that aim. That's our promise. Production We run a 24hr production operation which allows us to be extremely responsive and dependable, couple this with our continuous investment in stat-of-the-art equipment and we are able to deliver flexible print solutions. That allow us to cater for all complexities and scales of print work from standard generic print products i.e. Leaflets, Business Cards etc... to extremely complicated, time constrained, bespoke products that are increasingly used as part of any marketing and advertising strategy. Artwork We are here to help your marketing budget go further without compromise. We continually invest in technology to improve upon our quality, production efficiency and turnaround times. Any cost saving is passed onto our customers which allows us to offer incredibly competitive prices. If your a novice to the print and design world we would suggest that you use our 'design templates' rather than spending hours trying to work out how to produce your own print artwork, it will undoubtedly be a cheaper, less time consuming option. Also you know that your artwork will print properly and it will allow you more time to focus on your business. If you're an expert and have print ready artwork, what are you waiting for? Choose your specification, upload your artwork and we'll deliver wherever you want. If you have any questions or want more insight into our business please get in touch.