By MICHAEL SHIREK

It’s a marketing challenge unique to the 21st century: With the electronic saturation of American culture, brick-and-mortar businesses have found themselves competing for the attention of their targeted consumers — often facing off with a steady, unrelenting stream of information, images, sounds and interactive applications. It’s stiff competition, and the playing field seems to change daily.

But with that marketing challenge come opportunities; today’s local business owner need not sit in the corner, an economic wallflower. There are ways to join the fray, and the number of tools available to the average small-business owner is ever-growing. From social networking to targeted high-tech applications, the brick-and-mortar business is no longer tied to its storefront. A captive audience is tuning in — one Internet browser, one netbook, one smartphone at a time.

Today’s Marketing

KK Bold Conference Room

LaRoy Kingsley has seen rapid changes in the ways businesses market themselves. As president of KK Bold, he understands today’s marketing opportunities for the local business owner. In fact, his advertising agency is affected in many of the same ways its clients are affected. If the name KK Bold doesn’t ring a bell, maybe its predecessors will; KK Bold is the recently rebranded company that brings together the advertising agency formerly known as Kranzler Kingsley with its digital division, K2 Interactive.

Kingsley says KK Bold’s rebranding was precipitated in part by changes in the marketing world. The days of an advertising agency and its digital production company being different divisions are gone; the distinctions have vanished. “The name change was about having our company clearly positioned for the future,” he said. “Our industry has evolved significantly over the past 20 years, and our agency has had tremendous growth. Our rebranding was to make sure our name and position are reflective of where we are today and where we’re going tomorrow.”

Mirroring the changes in the way KK Bold brands itself, Kingsley said the company’s clients are also making fundamental changes to the way they present themselves in the marketplace. “When you talk about marketing today, you have to accept that the lines between traditional and new media are very blurred, and at some point they will — and should — come together and work together,” he said. “The term to describe this in our industry is integration. It is very rare in this day and age that we develop a media program for a client that doesn’t include both traditional and new media.”

Although the lines are blurring, there are still distinctions. “The biggest difference between the two, besides the obvious, is accountability and the ability to more thoroughly track results with online campaigns,” Kingsley said. “We can track our online campaigns in real time to the person, and we can make adjustments on the fly. Traditional media is much more cumbersome in that manner.”

Publisher Brian Kroshus of The Bismarck Tribune said the newspaper launched its new website in the fall of 2009 to augment the delivery of its news content and cater to consumers who are searching out more and varied ways to get information. The changes were “focused on improving site navigation and subsequently enhancing the user’s experience,” he said. “Overall, the Internet is something we embrace and are excited about here at the Tribune. It’s yet another vehicle in which we can distribute the good, quality editorial that we produce.”

The New Media

The hyperlinked icons are omnipresent, instantly recognizable and something of a revolution in the way people communicate on a daily basis. “Find us on Facebook,” the link says. “Share on Twitter.” In a way, the new world of social interaction on the Internet is one part organic word-of-mouth information and one part stealthy marketing. A business with a presence on Facebook or Twitter is entering the realm of the very consumers it seeks to reach. Facebook and Twitter are social networking sites, designed to help people get back in touch with friends from the past and stay in contact with a variety of friends, relatives, acquaintances and business contacts. They also allow businesses to maintain a site to pass along information to subscribers, who often pass that information along to their friends and family with the simple click of a hyperlink.

“The value in social marketing for a business is really right there in the name: social,” Kingsley said. “The reason why people flock to sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace is because they offer people a way to directly interact with the people they know on a daily basis. For anyone running a business, if you had a platform that allows you to not only deliver your message directly to the client, but also have them respond to it immediately, why would any business not want to do that?”

And local businesses have taken note.

Bob’s Photo in Bismarck has been on Facebook for about a year. The impetus for joining the social networking site came from others who were already there. “We were first made aware by photo industry peers that this was the best way to stay connected for the lowest cost,” said Jessie Dolajak, who administers the store’s Facebook interface. “Advertising is costly, and you’re never sure just who you are reaching.”

With Facebook, businesses know who they’re reaching: customers who have taken the step to sign up and follow the business. “We find it is a great, informal way to stay in touch with and on our customers’ minds,” Dolajak said.

With an attentive audience, marketing opportunities abound. “We like to share the new, exciting things Bob’s Photo is doing with digital imaging,” Dolajak said. “In the future, it would be great to do some Facebook exclusive deals; however, we have not tried any to date.”

Dolajak said she aims to update Bob’s Photo’s Facebook site at least three times per week, using the interface to promote new products and services, and to link to helpful photo tips. She said the company has also run a photo contest with the help of Facebook that has been a success.

Not far away in Bismarck, the Walrus restaurant is also embracing social networking sites in order to stay in touch with its customers. Owner Jill R. Sanford said the restaurant’s Facebook site has been a valuable resource that is proving to be an agile asset in its marketing portfolio.

“We do different things with it — we introduce (chef Kristin Sande’s) new menu items with it, and we put our Tapper Tuesday information there,” Sanford said.

The extra work in maintaining the restaurant’s social networking site is small compared to its benefits, Sanford said, and the feedback she gets from the site’s users is useful and nearly instantaneous.

The Walrus is also using Facebook to launch its newly created Golden Tusk Club. But Facebook is only one of the tools Sanford is using to grow the club.

Future Plans

Although social networking sites have represented a significant change in the way businesses communicate with their customers, there are a multitude of technologies currently available or in the works that will go a step beyond Facebook.

“It was natural,” Sanford said of the marketing strategy for the Golden Tusk Club. In addition to utilizing Facebook to interact, she’s going a step further. Instead of confining communications to the Internet, she’s taking the message straight to the customer — no matter if the customer is near a computer. Members of the new club can sign up for exclusive text message deals. “It only makes sense,” Sanford said. “People are so driven by their computers and their phones.”

So, at random times, Sanford will send out a message offering a deal to club members. All a member must do is come in and ask for it.

And it’s working.

“The response to the Golden Tusk Club is huge,” Sanford said. “It’s straight-up technology, and the technology is instant.”

What the Walrus is doing with the Golden Tusk Club is sometimes referred to as SMS — short message service. It’s an idea that’s been around for a while, and there are early adopters like the Walrus already running with it. But with the proliferation of the mobile phone, it’s a concept that is set to explode.

“When it comes to SMS, we are providing this for some clients,” said Kingsley of KK Bold. “One example would be Prairie Knights Casino and Resort. They have a good-sized SMS list that they use to provide information about upcoming concerts, promotions and giveaways. The market in this region is traditionally fairly slow to adopt new tech, but that said, the interest level in what Prairie Knights Casino has to offer has been quite high.”

Kingsley notes that success in SMS is dependent on demographics and the content a business has to offer. “We see it being used to great effect in the entertainment and tourism industry, especially in largely populated areas,” he said.

Another concern is that businesses send the messages somewhat infrequently, so as not to become a nuisance.

As it was launching its new website, the Tribune also was taking advantage of the new opportunities presented by technology. “Both social networking sites and SMS have and will continue to play an important role in the promotion of our site,” Kroshus said. “To a large extent, they provide a means to drive traffic to our website through news briefs. In the end, they can assist in supporting our core product, but certainly not replace it. The foundation and strength of any media site lies in the depth of unique, localized news they’re able to provide.”

Kroshus said even as the Tribune embraces the Internet in its publication process, his staff is looking beyond the computer. “Mobile applications, iPads and other devices certainly provide additional channels in which we can distribute our offerings, something we will certainly utilize in the future.”

No matter the technology a business uses to connect, however, one thing is certain. Today’s consumer is tuned in technologically, and willing and able to check out what a business has to offer through a number of sources. While there are many strategies a business might employ to capture the consumer’s attention, one empirical truth has emerged in the 21st century: Writing off technology as a fad, a nuisance or an insignificant marketing tool is the quickest possible way to lose customers to someone who is willing to embrace the opportunities.