Social Media Magazines: A New Ingredient to the Marketing Mix

What marketing avenues are you using to make customers aware of your products and services? Are you increasing the creative component of your marketing strategy? Do you think social media magazines will fit into your marketing program?

When examining the ingredients of inbound marketing, we discover updated ways to advertise and reach our targeted audience. Inbound marketing includes social media, comment marketing, quality article marketing, video marketing, content marketing and mobile marketing. Inbound marketers are finding new visibility opportunities on the social marketing circuit. A new niche of mobile marketing designed to build consumer relationships is through social media magazines.

Social media magazines are enhanced by advanced technology that allows the reader to experience high quality content with user-friendly multimedia capabilities. The content published in this medium is automatically formatted on the web browser of your mobile device in a print like configuration.

Radio, television, magazines, direct mail and newspapers (or ROP) are the traditional promotional components of a company's marketing plan. Each element carries substantial costs, some more than others. Customarily, companies would strategically place their promotional dollars in areas that could generate high visibility in a prime location or time slot. The four tactical components of a marketing mix would primarily consist of price, place, product and promotion. This traditional use of product promotion is categorized as outbound marketing.

Marketing managers can no longer depend on the customary credit billing inserts, direct mail, trade shows, email blasts, telemarketing or cold calling to give you a substantial return on investment (ROI). If you are a staunch outbound marketer, you must incorporate more elements of inbound marketing into your marketing mix. It is a fraction of the advertising costs than traditional marketing, even though you have to devote more time to increase your brand visibility. The time you constructively and creatively invest into reaching out to your customers through interactive channels, will pay off in the end.

With the increase of mobile subscribers, companies are capitalizing on the wave of digitally connecting to this segment of the social media populace. Mobile penetration through handheld devices like the Apple iPad, iPhone, tablet PC's and other Smartphones is offering the potential for a lucrative marketing opportunity. The promotional component of the marketing mix is ever evolving. A business or nonprofit organization can no longer think outside of the box, but they have to get out of the box completely. New unconventional marketing strategies are changing the face of advertising communications every day. Social media magazines are making an innovative shift in the mobile marketing revolution.