My Space, Face Book, WHAT? WHO?
Back in the old days when I did a little marketing work for our company, methods were different. If I was to set out to design for print a single page flyer it was a major endeavor. Especially if you wanted real pictures in the presentation. We would first take pictures of the product either installed on a vehicle or in a layout using a dual lens box camera. The exposed film went to the local camera shop for development. A few days later we picked up a packet of developed photos. If all went well and the pictures turned out to be usable we moved on to the next step. If they didn’t turn out so well we had to do a re-shoot. The next step was to visit a retouch artist that would air brush the photo to highlight certain aspects of the photo and shade out other unwanted features. A few days later and after a couple of visits to the retouch studio we had a usable picture for our brochure. Then off to the printer with our application list, the ad copy and of course the valuable photo. After approval of the layout and several corrections from the proof read sessions we had a final version to go to print with. The whole process usually taking at least a month to complete. Then there was delivery of the new brochure. Either by mail or hand delivered with a sales pitch, both worked but also took time and effort.
Fast forward to the present and we now have at our finger tips through the marvels of technology the capability of an entire print shop production facility on top of our desks. Digital cameras give us digitized photos or even digital video that is manipulated and edited into the most professional images with little time or effort. Page layout is an equally fast high quality process. Editing is done in seconds and photo retouch is accomplished with the stroke of a mouse. With the experienced technician at the controls a project like I earlier described is accomplished in hours not days or weeks. Quality is only limited by your in house high tech printer/copier and the paper you use.
Delivery of the finished product is a completely different story today. If you even use a printed version of the work you have just created, the same mailing or hand delivery methods still apply. But now throw the internet into the distribution opportunity and you truly have a powerful tool to promote your products. E-mail the advertisement to hundreds if not thousands of recipients with a few key strokes. The information spreads like wild fire. Several of our customer’s web site banners carry our logos and slogans. And don’t forget the Blog sites. Our web site is something to see with features and information evolving continually.
Then came the proposal from our young and forward thinking marketing people that they want to market the company via My Space and Face Book and we’ll have lots of friends and fans, my reaction was WHAT? WHO?
It certainly looks like “out with old and in with the new” when it comes to the ways this company is going to market itself in the future.
