Spengler was wrong 25 years ago and the mere thought of tweeting would be as likely as the Stay Puft marshmallow man terrorizing the Big Apple.

But I digress. These tools we embrace, (i.e., blogs, twitter, facebook, ning) are a new way of connecting to one another which ultimately paves the way for what one advertises on any medium for: a transaction.

I like the insight Jeff offers about the power of twitter because that is the essence of twitter—permission. The people following you on twitter don’t have to. They opt in.

Press releases—referred to by Aaron are a dangerous proposition. Especially in a world where we have so many choices and I can get the information I want. Press releases are written for a specific reason. They are written to get ‘press.’ They are entirely self-indulgent and self-congratulatory. The consumer doesn’t care anymore about what you claim to be. The consumer (or client in the real estate business) is in charge—not the person writing pr—this, again is why social media is advantageous to any organization that embraces it as marketing tool. If it’s real, if it’s authentic and doesn’t read like spam… then even the clients that are upset with you will buy from you.

Branding, on the other hand, is important. Especially if you are in the business of selling something that very few qualify for in the first place. Tacos, not so much. (no offense, Jeff, your analogy is brilliant)

The luxury market lends itself to a very niche oriented buyer and seller. Also, effective branding and marketing is not easy to achieve. It’s never been easy.

That is why with the help of an authentic social media strategy ‘married’ with print media is the road to success and essential to a luxury real estate agent… I’d also pay particular attention to Seth’s Blog post today.

So, create a unique buzz and the rest will follow? Definitely I say YES!
One more thing, there is nothing that excited about a beef truck in Los Angeles or a Blender by Blendtec, http://www.blendtec.com/willitblend/

What is exciting is the approach, that subtle paradigm that creating a tipping point for a business. If presented to “The Mavens” properly, they will do the work for you.

Great article Roger, thanks for the great and well thought out blog!

There are many examples of pure organic brand creation. My point is that to achieve critical mass for organic growth, one needs a means of “priming the pump” so to speak. For me print has done that rapidly.
Thanks again for the insight.
Roger

To take your example, people go for a drive to look for a Subway restaurant in a strange town because Subway are enormous with a truly humbling brand building budget. Instead of trying to tackle that why not do something different and deliver food to the car. Just turn up in the car park with food and sell it as people are about to get in their cars. If your food is good enough they will keep buying it and tell their friends about it so you get more orders.
Then get press releases and write about how so much time is lost looking for and lining up in Subway when there is a great alternative that can be delivered to your car or office or wherever else you are. By focussing on these channels a brand is built up as a result of your direct response activity.
Richard Branson didn’t create the Vrgin brand with the first sales of punk music, he had been quietly working away on direct response and PR channels with fanzines for years before he ever contemplated music publishing. I agree with you that a great and memorable brand name is important but spending money on a brand is an expensive and long road to profit. Many people don’t have enough gas left in the tank to get where they are going. Focussing on direct response (and supplement with free PR and whatever else is cheap) gets cash into the bank, preserves profit and keeps the engine running on the road to brand.

“Traffic to your site needs to be substantial, if it is going to achieve traction and grow organically. The quickest way to do that is to market your web site via traditional print vehicles targeted to your particular industry.”

It seems to me that in my case, for example, we have indeed implemented print ad’s, but our organic growth stems from capturing our audience in like mediums. For example, we put something on a social network site and the audience goes to our main site. We post a blog and traffic increases. Our growth may be attributed to print in some sense, but it is not measurable. What is measurable, however, is the traffic generated online. Furthermore, everything I learned in school seems to indicate that marketing is achieves optimal growth when staying within a specific media type. Someone is online searching, for example. What do you do? You drive them to your site while they are using the internet – while they are a “captive” audience. To make an ad campaign most dynamic, we must achieve what advertisers call “legs.” You likely know what legs are – they do not necessarily break the campaign but they may tremendously add to it’s effectiveness. If we communicate our message effectively in many mediums with the potential to grow into more campaigns, we have legs. It is the goal, but again, I don’t think I would say print and online combine to make the strongest army. This is not to destroy print ads at all, they are still effective. But, I am not sure the quickest way to grow online is from print.

Also, the debate about ROI, I would propose, is more on the side of traditional media. If any media holds the most potential for measuring ROI, it’s online. Additionally, social networking online is relatively cheap, you are primarily paying for the man power to produce content and post information. So, I would say there is a relentless debate on ROI that remain inherent in the ad world, but it’s slowly becoming more measurable with tools such as google analytics the tracking power that online offers.

Your branding rhetoric is right on. Your whole blog is good, I am of a slightly different philosophy on ROI and print media.