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Outdoor Industry Marketing | How to Spend your Money Wisely

Outdoor Industry Marketing | All advertising is marketing, but not all marketing is advertising

By Jeremy Flinn, COO/CMO – Stone Road Media

“All advertising is marketing, but not all marketing is advertising.”

The statement is a type of logic called transposition. Simply it says if you have advertising then you are marketing, but if you are marketing that does not mean you are advertising. This is actually a good thing for your business!
Why?
Well, advertising traditionally cost money. Historically, the large, dominating forces in the outdoor industry were typically the ones with the largest advertising budget. This money was spent on TV, Radio, Print, Trade Shows, and the like. Because of its “free reign,” the budget was not closely monitored for literal Return on Investment (ROI), but simply to make sure a “consistent” flow of business came in.
Today’s “consumer engagement” specialists are evolving at a rapid pace, and those resistant to change will likely be spent faster than their annual advertising budget. No longer is it appropriate to consider advertisers and marketers one in the same.

Advertisers tend to spend money, whereas marketers tend to make money.

Big difference? Absolutely. But that isn’t to say that advertisers don’t have a role in the consumer engagement process. In today’s outdoor industry, TV, radio, and print are very powerful modes of marketing. However, for the first time in history use of internet driven devices exceeded the use of any one of those platforms. In order to succeed in marketing effectively through the internet, it takes a new wave of thinking…organic.
Like the food, organic in the internet has the same base term – natural. Organic internet marketing, often termed Inbound Marketing, reaches the targeted consumer through natural search methods. Those companies stuck in their ways with paid advertising, have no shortcuts here. Research from Google, who currently owns 90% of annual searches, recently showed over 82% of clicks on their Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) were on organic links, with the small balance on those paid “Pay per Clicks.”

It’s all about relevant, unique content. If you create content the user is likely to look for, then the odds of directing them to your website, and subsequently services and products, is astronomically higher. The traditional advertisers that plan to use “available content” from other feeds and blogs will often fall short again, as content is connected to the original source and your posting is simply a “backlink” for the original page.
In the end it’s simple. Embrace the fact that advertising still has its place; but be fully aware that it WILL NOT provide you a complete marketing strategy.

Advertising spends money, marketing makes money….end of story.

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