The world is changing at a rapid rate, and as our population increases, industries grow, demand for products and services surge and new businesses enter the market.

A brand can no longer invest all their efforts and money into just one marketing channel, they must explore other avenues to convey their brand's message and stand out from the crowd! Brands must also ensure their marketing material is used to its full potential, recycled and used again and again - but how do you do this without being monotonous, and how do you reach a larger audience?

In this article we are going to focus on engaging your customers through multimedia applications. Multimedia is prevalent in all our lives and will definitely be more so in the future.

What is Multimedia?
Put simply, multimedia is a combination of audio, images, animation, video and text that are primarily used to entertain, inform, present and educate.

Can multimedia give your business the competitive edge?
It most certainly can! Here's a couple of ways we believe that Multimedia applications can help give your brand the competitive edge.

1. Done properly, multimedia is a professional representation of your brand
First impressions count! Multimedia gives you a platform to be seen, and most importantly ... remembered (for the right reasons). Cleverly thought out presentations, coupled with professionally produced audio productions (voice overs and royalty free music) allow you to engage with your audience on two levels - visual and sound. This is only one example, but a marketing tool such as a Powerpoint presentation combined with a professionally voice recording timed perfectly in the background can be used as a powerful tool to educate staff, form relationships with suppliers and to engage with customers. Better yet, it can be used over and over again and through a number of marketing channels - direct, online and in print.

2. Fine tune and recycle great marketing material
Good marketing material is a result of knowing your customers, understanding their needs and clearly conveying how you can meet those needs to your target market. So why wouldn't you want to recycle an affective piece of communication? If you were a speaker at an industry event, then a video and audio recording will give you the opportunity to reuse this material, questions from your audience can help create blogs and other useful tools.

3. Reach a larger audience
Social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin are basically bringing the world to your doorstep. The examples I have used above can both be launched onto the world wide web by uploading your presentations as a podcast on your website, YouTube and then promoting them on the various social networks - potentially reaching thousands of information hungry consumers, whom you may never have crossed paths with in the past.

Multimedia marketing allows business to explore communication channels previously neglected, potentially reaching an untapped audience. It helps you understand different marketing mediums and gain a better insight as to what channels are reaching your core target market, and it also shows your audience that your brand is inline with our rapidly changing, technology advancing times.