The internet and social media has changed the marketing game completely. It’s becoming less common to use the push strategy of sending out endless flyers to households advertising. Now the most effective way to market is to use a pull strategy through E-Marketing, let consumers be brand advocates. Use different mediums to reach consumers that let them interact and talk about your brand. One of the most effective ways to do this is through social media.
So why are flyers not good for the environment? Well besides the fact that many end up in the landfill, we can also recycle them. Recycling is good right? …
Well recycling is better than creating more garbage but many people don’t realize that their paper recycling is shipped overseas to places like China or Indonesia. The carbon footprint from shipping mass amounts of paper from North America and Western Europe is obviously not a positive thing and this is not what you think of when you’re doing your part throwing your paper into the recycling.
I can honestly say that there are far less flyers coming in the mail than when I was growing up. This has a lot to do with the explosion of internet advertising and use of social media. The coupon business is growing online through email subscription sites such as Groupon. Groupon is using a pull strategy letting it’s users do the talking for it. This allows them to reach a far wider audience than traditional door flyers could ever hope to.
A further trend that’s happening is the use of smart phone technology to target consumers. Certain applications can message consumers when they’re in a certain area to alert them of a promotion at a close by store. This is eliminating the need to hire someone to pass out flyers that end up in the garbage anyways. Technology is quickly replacing the need for paper advertising. Now the only thing we need to worry about is recycling the computers and cell phones once they’re at the end of their life span.
Scott I continue to be amazed and astonished with the insight of your articles. I too have begun to notice that I receive less and less flyers in my mail and am now more likely to be bombarded online. While I am sure that a lot of companies will point to the fact going wireless is saving the enviroment I believe the actual reason for this change is that they can hit a much larger audience for a much cheaper price. The trend of marketing through peoples mobile devices is something that also must be watched carefully going forward as this could be a huge inconvenience for the owners of these mobile devices going forward.