Expert teaches Web marketing

Who says nothing's free anymore?

They're wrong: Close to 100 Rio Rancho business people were treated to a scrumptious free breakfast and a 21st century marketing seminar at the Hilton Garden Inn Tuesday morning.

Although when people think 21st century, the Internet and all its platforms can't be far behind, Michael Blinder (rhymes with cinder) told the audience things haven't changed much since the 17th century.

Back then, a guy wanting to sell his cow would nail a note on a tree and hope prospective buyers would see it. A savvy cow-seller would make sure his note was on the path traveled most by potential cow buyers.

Today, of course, the tree and the note have changed. A consumer concept originating in the 1800s, with the acronym AIDA, is still in play: awareness, interest, desire and action. AIDA was illustrated with a funnel, with the opening — awareness — at the top, hopefully funneling potential customers to the bottom, with action.

If attendees had visited Blinder's website, they'd have learned he knows media advertising sales like no other. Once a well-known radio and television talent in Maine, Blinder moved from behind the microphone and camera with the goal of excelling in media sales.

He was among those quick to realize the importance of the newly emerging Internet phenomenon, and soon launched the Internet sales division of a leading media group. His career growing exponentially since then, Blinder, who lives in Lutz, Fla., is in high demand as a sales consultant for some of the world's most respected media companies and corporations.

Rio Rancho Observer publisher Rockford Hayes was among those impressed with Blinder's expertise and approach, and brought him to Rio Rancho for the first of three area presentations last week.

"We brought Mike Blinder into our market to assist in training our sales team on the new digitally-oriented products we're offering our advertising clients. But as a huge bonus, he also offered to conduct a marketing seminar for area businesses," Hayes said. "It was delightful to see more than 100 businesses register for the seminar in Rio Rancho — and actual attendance was nearly that high, as we almost filled up the space at Hilton Garden Inn."

Blinder's unique approach to marketing has been has been adopted by 50,000 businesses worldwide; the Blinder Group has helped them bring their products — traditionally and Web-based — to countless clients, established and new. In the past decade alone, Blinder and his team have provided "on-the-street training" to thousands of media reps, producing millions of dollars in sales.

Blinder, who never masked his enthusiasm for his subject, had plenty of numbers: He'd worked with more than 350 media companies, the average age of a Facebook user is 38 and 70 percent of those looking at Facebook are women, and, holding up his smartphone, he noted "(People are spending) 3½ hours a day looking at this thing. … The No. 1 thing they crave on it is news."

In Blinder's book, "Survival Selling, Even in the Toughest Times," he relates some interesting information: "According to David Shenk, the average American was exposed to 560 advertising messages a day in 1971, but this number increased to over 3,000 in 1997 … before the boom in Internet advertising, and is already at 5,000 today. This means that each and every one of us is exposed to over 1.8 million ads a year." (It's probably less for those with TiVo.)

So, the big question of the session became how do you reach everyone spending time on the devices and persuade them to come to your business location and buy your product?

"Facebook is the No. 2 website in the free world today," he said, although he pointed out that teens have opted out of Facebook — "It ain't cool to be where grandma is" — for Instagram, where the average age is 23½, he said, and Twitter, also valuable ways to reach customers.

But Facebook isn't the be-all, end-all: "Most of it — let's put our cards on the table — is boring."

Naturally, it's important to keep those eyes on your page, which he jokingly said is best done by having photos of dogs and/or kids. People also need to be aware that, regardless of the site you're on, you're being profiled. That is bad for privacy, but creates new and highly effective ways to market.

Geo-targeting is the way to get traffic into your business, Blinder said, which means finding the best way in "growing more content locally.

"You know how hard it is to find a business on Facebook?" he queried.

The challenge is, he said, getting "likes." From those likes grow more likes. But, he cautioned, "I've got to 'like' you to like you."

Merely posting a sign, encouraging customers to "like us on Facebook," isn't enough.

Brand loyalty is on the decline in America, he said, thus the importance of rewarding loyal customers with discounts and special deals.

Despite what some people may think, he said, newspapers aren't dying; they just cater to an older age demographic.

"Sixty percent of my clients are newspapers," Blinder said. "If they didn't have an audience, why did Warren Buffet buy 200 of them?"

"Community newspapers understand they must continue to evolve and innovate to remain effective, amid the disruptions to our traditional business model by social media and mobile communications," Hayes explained. "As the Observer pivots to meet current and future needs of our advertising partners, our mission remains the same: to serve our community with the news and information residents need to successfully engage in civic life, while also providing an effective and affordable way for businesses to reach their neighbors with a successful marketing message."

Like the "cow-for-sale" note on the tree, Blinder said, another once-popular mode of advertising is passé: "The Yellow Pages is for the three people who don't have the Internet," he said, quoting comedian Jay Leno from 2009. "Ninety percent use Google to find something; 90 percent stay on the first page (they arrive at)."

You might find, after performing a search on Google, ads related to that search show up when you're using Facebook or another website, which Blinder referred to as "contextual targeting."

As always, in advertising, reach and frequency are the keys to success. But they are only half the challenge, Blinder said. The campaign must include messages with an compelling "offer" and with "immediacy" to that customer to take advantage of the great offer now.

Customers have to know "What's in it for me?" he said, and businesses have to market to that reality.

Frequently tossing out acronyms, one of Blinder's final of that category was TOMA, or top of mind awareness, "thinking of me at the top of their mind," for business owners.

A busy man, since May Blinder's made presentations in Washington, Alabama, Illinois, Ohio and Vancouver, B.C., and managed to find family time with his family in Florida. Oh, and on Facebook, he shares that he saw his first space launch in mid-July.

Source: Expert teaches Web marketing