If you ask most advertisers today, they’ll tell you digital marketing is the key to consumers’ hearts (or at least their minds). After all, the internet is where most people spend the majority of their day.
For instance, you’ll find most of today’s youth on social media, browsing Google and watching online video.
However, if you take a closer look, you’ll find that not every person is online, which means using digital marketing alone leaves out a chunk of your prospects.
Combining digital and traditional marketing together is the key to getting the best results. Now, let’s take a closer look at how.
Why You Should Use Digital and Traditional Marketing Together
A lot of today’s marketing campaigns consist of social media campaigns, email newsletters, blog post writing and pay-per-click ads.
While this is all good for reaching the tech-savvy individuals, this doesn’t include everyone. So by using traditional marketing techniques, you can leverage your campaigns and reach those who aren’t always on the world wide web.
There are still a ton of people (even web users), who watch television, listen to the radio and read magazines and newspapers.
Just about everybody drives around town and see billboards on a daily basis. Combining digital and traditional marketing can help ensure your product or service is seen by as many of your audience as possible.
The key is determining which products have the better result online and which will perform better with offline promotions.
Now, let’s review the pros and cons of using each.
The Pros of Using Traditional Marketing
Don’t be so quick to throw traditional marketing methods out the window. After all, it still provides some pretty great benefits, such as the following:
- Offers a high success rate
- Reaches a wide audience
- Promotes to consumers who aren’t online
- Offers a more personal approach (face-to-face and direct mail)
- Stays in the memory longer (no clicking away from your ad or website)
However, the downsides of using traditional marketing include:
- Promotions aren’t targeted
- The price tag can be very high
- Tracking results is very difficult
The Pros and Cons of Digital Marketing
There’s a reason why virtually every business is now incorporating digital marketing into their strategies. Let’s take a quick look at how many of these methods are benefiting the companies that use them:
- Meet the fast-paced world we now live in
- Reach an even wider audience
- Easily accessible by everyone from anywhere
- Results are easily measured and tracked
- Data is easily collected on customers and prospects
- Highly-targeted marketing
- Isn’t as intrusive
- Provides two-way conversations with consumers
But what about the downsides? Let’s review them:
- Easy to get left behind by the ever-evolving technologies and techniques
- Hard to gain visibility
- Can be time-consuming (consistent content creation)
- Places you under immediate and public scrutiny (negative comments)
Even with the pros and cons of each method, integrating digital and traditional marketing can spell great things for your advertising campaigns.
But how exactly should you pull this off? Let’s review seven methods you can start using today.
1. Combine Email and Direct Mail Marketing
We all know how effective direct marketing is for promoting products and services. In traditional marketing, this includes mailing out fliers, postcards, and letters to prospects and customers.
In digital marketing, this consists of sending out emails to interested parties. Collecting emails from users helps clarify who wants you to contact them and who doesn’t.
By reaching out to consumers using email, as well as direct mail marketing, you can enhance your reach and outcome.
2. Include Your Digital Channels On Print Mediums
All of your marketing collateral should feature your online channels and this includes printed materials. This includes your business cards, posters, leaflets, brochures, and billboards.
Today’s consumers are more willing to follow brands on social media and visit URLs. So make sure to include this on all pieces of marketing collateral and ensure they’re consistent across all mediums.
You can even get creative by using feather flags to promote your online channels and products.
3. Include Digital Calls to Action in Offline Ads
Say you have a television commercial you’ve put out. To help draw your viewers to your online properties, you can include a digital call to action. For example, a simple URL to your campaign landing page.
This way, you can engage your audience and provide additional details to interested parties. In your landing page, make it easier for them to opt-in for future communications from your brand.
4. Draw Online Traffic to Your Physical Location
It’s great you have the option to purchase your products online. But there are some folks who prefer to shop in person. You want to target these individuals in your online campaigns.
For instance, include a mobile barcode on your site visitors can use when they purchase in-store. Or you can create geo-targeted ads to driver awareness of your physical location.
5. Use Your Sales Team to Follow Up
In most digital marketing plans, you’ll find forms used on websites to collect customer data. For instance, signing up to access gated content, such as online video tutorials or courses.
Your sales team can follow up with these users by reaching out to them over the phone.
6. Advertising Local Events Online
Social media proves to be a great medium for promoting a local event. For instance, you can create an actual event page on Facebook and invite users to it.
Then after the event, you can reach out to participants on Twitter or other social platforms. Create a hashtag for the event to help get your posts trending.
7. Advertise Online Channels On Billboards
Yes, billboards are very effective at getting the attention of passersby. This is especially true if you’re clever in your graphics and wording.
But whatever you decide to display on your billboard, make sure to include your digital channels. You can invite viewers to opt into your email campaign or to submit user-generated content (photos, videos, blogs).
Find Tools to Enhance Your Digital Marketing
Whether you decide to combine digital and traditional marketing or not, it’s a good idea to find resources to enhance your efforts.
At WebConfs, you can find a variety of SEO tools you can use to grow your online presence. This includes a keyword density checker, keyword ranking tool, and online reputation management audit tool.
Stop by WebConfs today to see what tools and guides you can find to enhance your marketing strategies.