A nice, out-of-town salesman who puts bread on his table pitching the benefits of online marketing to small businesses reminded me last week of just how powerful non-online marketing is.

He didn’t mean to, but once I pointed it out he did admit I was right.

He sounded young and hip; he probably has a Twitter feed, a Facebook page, a Google+ account, a few dozen pins on Pinterest, a professional account on LinkedIn and at least five other online profiles that are too hip for me to even know about yet.

He was coming to town to pitch his services as a marketing representative for Constant Contact — an online e-mail marketing company — and he had roped the local chambers of commerce into supporting his seminar and sharing details with their members, via e-mail chains and online posts, of course.

But the salesman needed one more thing, and he knew where to get it.

He needed listeners; he needed an audience of business owners. In other words, he needed to market his marketing seminar.

So whom did he call?

He called the same place local businesses, churches, schools, clubs, government, non-profits, residents, teams, groups and more call every day when they have information to deliver — the local newspaper, of course.

Apparently posting it on Facebook, Twitter and your blog site are not enough, according to this expert on marketing.

Maybe I’m mean, but I enjoy greatly making a good, unexpected point. Those who know me best would simply say I like to be right.

So when Mr. Marketing explained that he was leading a seminar to help local businesses learn how to market themselves through social media and he hoped the newspaper would run an article promoting that fact, I couldn’t help myself.

I explained that I understood where he was coming from, and that I hoped his seminar would surely include the message that he obviously already believed himself — the local newspaper is the best way to get out your message.

He didn’t deny my point, and, being a good salesman, agreed with me and assured me he would in fact spread the word about marketing yourself through the newspaper.

I didn’t attend the session, since I think Facebook and Twitter are pretty self explanatory to anyone under 75, and I don’t believe enough locals use any other kind of social media for it to matter, so I don’t know if my new friend kept his word or not.

It’s OK if he didn’t though, since all of our great readers remind me daily that our efforts here truly are worthwhile. I hear you constantly saying, “I saw that in The Democrat,” or “The newspaper said…”

And of course I hear it when you say, “The newspaper misspelled that,” or “My newspaper wasn’t on time today.”

We appreciate the comments — good and bad — and we know you guys rely on us to get the information right and quickly.

We love our nearly 7,000 Facebook fans, too, but we realize that far more of you read our print edition and online edition daily than have ever seen one of our Facebook posts.

For that reason, we’ll continue to put newsgathering, information providing, marketing message delivery and — simply put — you, the reader, first whether you follow us on social media or not.

Thanks for reading.

 

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.