The Internet Is Not Life

If you’ve dipped your toes into the waters of marketing, chances are good that the first thing you did was spend some time searching for resources on the Internet. For many of us, the first thing we reach for when we’re researching something is a Web browser. It’s immediate, and it’s free. It’s also a mixed blessing.

When you talk to people about marketing, the first words you’ll hear will be ones like "social media" and "search engine optimization" (SEO). The latter is the art of making your Web site show up at the top of the search results. Without a doubt, the Web can be a very useful marketing tool. There’s just one catch. Shocking though it may be, not everyone spends large chunks of their day on the Internet. In fact, it might surprise you to learn how many people there are in the world who aren’t wild about technology in general.

When you’re building an audience, do you want to limit yourself to that subset of the population that is technically savvy or do you just want a large following? There is more to life than the Internet. A great many of your potential fans are out there living it.

I mention this not to discourage you from employing every technical advantage you can find but rather to keep you from limiting yourself. There are a great-many ways to spread the word about what you’re doing that don’t require a computer or cell phone. Were this not the case, no company would ever have made a sale before the silicon revolution of the 1980s and ’90s. This means that Internet-based promotion should be only one aspect of your efforts.

All of this adds up to one inescapable conclusion: Use the technical resources you can find whenever possible, especially the free ones. However, don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Your best approach is a balanced one that combines as many different elements as you can pull together.