guest post by Jim Durbin
I used to work for a vacation marketing firm in Florida. That's right - I sold vacation promotions over the phone to car dealers, mortgage firms, retail stores and banks. You may have seen these promotions - Buy a Car, get a 3 day/2 night vacation at over one of 335 premier hotels like Hilton, Hyatt and Marriott.
The vacation promotion had varying degrees of effectiveness, and as we sought case studies for references, it was always frustrating to find that easy answers on what worked and what didn't were not readily available.
For some clients, direct marketing was the king. A direct marketing mortgage promotion boosted closings 30% in each month of the campaign, and worked every year they were tried. For other clients, radio spots brought traffic in the door of the car dealer, while newspaper ads worked best for the La-Z Boy Dealer. Over time, one thing became clear - what worked for some, did not work for everyone. In some areas, radio was king - and in others, newspapers still ruled.
Years later, I found out why. It wasn't the salespeople, or the region, or even owner's reputation that paid off. Studies show that consumers are most susceptible to a mix of information. If you have a $100,000 marketing budget, you're better off spreading the money around and calculating the total result instead of picking one marketing channel and spending your whole budget.
That's one of those counter-intuitive studies about how consumers operate, and difficult to swallow when your latest Direct Marketing campaign showed a 3.5% result and your latest radio ad campaign brought in no qualified leads. but it is that mix, not the message that makes the difference.
Now stop and apply this to your own career, and your own experience. Ideally you're seeking to build your personal brand among as wide of an audience as possible. Would your greatest success be found in focusing on one area (like blogging or maybe the local chamber), or a mix of mediums that include on- and off-line channels.
Ask yourself this question? Who do you trust the more, the heavily-involved organizer of the AMA chapter meeting who speaks at the local meeting once a year, knows everyone in the area and is quoted in the local paper, or the "expert" you saw give a speech at a conference, has a book, has a blog, and is quoted in several different papers around the country?
Is it the number of touches you get for an individual, or the variety of touches you get from different mediums that matters? As we look at managing our careers, take a look at the way you judge the expertise of the people you admire. Are they high-impact or wide-impact players? Which do you want to be, and which will further your career goals?
Jim Durbin is the director, corporate communications for Durbin Media Group, an interactive marketing firm in St Louis, MO. He is a blogging evangelist and online employment expert who can be read at brandstorming.com and stlrecruiting.com.
