It's not easier, indeed it's more difficult: On making sense of the media problems everybody faces.

If you're in business, you have a problem.

If you're in business and have a need to communicate with consumers--or prospective ones--in today's world, you've got a problem you may not realize, potentially a big one.  It's a "good" problem as far as problems go--but a challenge nonetheless.  Most managers don't have a full appreciation of this matter like they might, but let me help a little in articulating what the deal is in this regard.

With all the choices comes the need to effectively choose.

The issue is this:  There's never been a time in the history of business that's presented more ways to reach consumers...print, broadcast, internet, phone; and each of these has a panoply of alternatives within their scope that point to a set of alternatives--plus the combinations of "media" mixes between them--that is potentially a very large number.  The "problem" becomes one of understanding what the right combination of media and vehicles ought to be for a given task to [1] reach an audience; [2] be effective in messaging; [3] be cost effective; [4] persuasive; and, failing any of these, [5] avoid annoying the message recipient in the process.  

There are, in effect, so many ways to feasibly reach prospects and customers these days, the chances for success are not so much enhanced as diminished.  On the one hand, one runs the risk of making the wrong choices target-wise, spending too much or too little, running with weak or cross-media-deficient messaging, or--and this is of superordinate importance--orchestrating a meaningful campaign.  On the other hand, the risk is real that a one-time-only message isn't going to do the job.  

With more media comes the need for more sophistication, not less.

Yes, the notion of promotional "campaigns" is still critical, although I find more and more professionals ignoring this reality for running to take advantages of the social media.  A lot of people I know--and some I work with--seem to operate under the belief that if, for example, you "hit" someone with an on-line ad...that the prospect will "move through" the stages of the consumer decision process in an almost immediate sense--and that the job of communicating, persuading, and selling has been effectively accomplished.  Well, human nature is still human nature and the need for shepherding the prospect through the decision process is still important, still takes time to occur, and requires--more often than not--multiple messages in multiple media.  

So, instead of making effective promotional campaigns easier, more effective, and less expensive, more media [read the "internet" and "social media" here especially so], the more formidable the job becomes to be communication-smart and consumer-efficacious.  My sense is that most managers who over-see these decision are still a simplistic, gee-whiz stage of deciding what and what not to do.  

You can check out what others think about this issue.

A recent article I ran across in Ad Age, there's an article that reports the short, pithy comments of ten industry experts on the state-of-the-art in media management from an effectiveness of communicating with consumers perspective.  If you're interest in some thoughtful comments on what some bright people think about the matter, you'll want to check this article out.  
_______________________________________________________________

Follow Keith's biz blog on Twitter for updates and see more of what he's reading about on his Facebook Page.