COMMUNICATION
River Communications was thorough with thinking of both primary and intervening audiences in their research. However, I feel that they can use a more diverse arsenal of communications tactics. They stressed trade shows, however these are only reach attendees. Sending news releases to publications such as Business Week, Forbes, Managing Money, and The Wall Street Journal would be a start if it has not been done already. Another promising channel to reach the intended audiences are a few features found on Investment Advisor.com. This channel includes blogs and podcasts. The Affluentialist blog seems to cater to the audiences that M3 is trying to reach and a podcast entitled Investment Advisor also seems to be a good option. The podcast is streaming and interactive and the blog allows for comments to be posted so people can comment on positive experiences they are sure to have with M3. Both of these are inexpensive, as Mr. Meise mentioned that M3 had a lower budget and could afford a lower retainer for River.
EVALUATION
There was an issue that I found that could lead to lower the credibility of M3. First, the scripting of the question and answer television broadcast and the creation of false quotes for John Phoenix could quickly lose credibility with the press and therefore their audiences. Though I'm sure Mr. Phoenix gave permission for his name to be used, it still does not scream integrity. His byline was even used in an article written by another. If a client is to trust this company, who Mr. Phoenix is ultimately the face of, how can they know that the company is trustworthy if this is leaked?
The happiness of the client was listed as the ultimate measure of success. However I feel that with a brand new company, such as M3, it would be easier to measure how fast the client base took off versus the media coverage the company has recieved. A satisfaction survey could also find out a lot about your clientelle and may also reveal some information on how to reach new customers and would not be as timely and costly as a survey encompassing the general financial world. With the blog and podcasts, you can easily measure who visits the website, what they see, and how long they stay using Google Analytics which can give you a feel for if this is an effective way to reach people and what they are interested in seeing from M3. If they spend a lot of time on a page, this is obviously a concept that should be pushed into mainstream media.
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3 comments:
I think your post mentioned a lot of great places where M3 could be publicized. Many brokers may be too busy to go to trade shows but do make time to read certain publications each day. While The Wall Street Journal may be too expensive, there is sure to be others out there that would love to talk about M3. In my opinion, discussing new services would put the publication ahead of its competitors so it would be a win-win.
I agree with Megan that there are a number of publications that would be interested in talking about M3. Having feature articles written for the M3 can be a free method of advertising the business.
I also like the idea of a blog, which is something I mentioned in my post as well. I think the interactivity would be a successful way of getting testimonials from companies who are happy clients of the work River Communications has done with their business.
I know that Justin does not like the use of blogs, but I think that Lauren suggested some good credible sources for blogs. Financial advisors could easily listen to podcasts mentioning M3 during their daily commute and could then do some research on the blog. This could help spread the M3 name throughout the financial world.
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