How to Consolidate Traditional and Digital Marketing
The internet’s growth has impacted how information is acquired and the interaction of brands and media. Therefore, technological advancements necessitate the formation of new business marketing strategies to ensure effective digital marketing performance.
Many people have opted to abandon traditional marketing for digital marketing strategies such as email marketing and social media marketing. They believe that traditional methods of promoting products and services are outdated and incompatible with contemporary business demands.
However, it is not entirely accurate. Risks, efforts to integrate old and new ways, and fresh perspectives on already well-known procedures are necessary for a successful business. In some cases, combining conventional and digital marketing might be more effective than using each individually.
How Traditional Marketing Differs From Digital Marketing
Traditional and digital marketing differ in several ways. The significant distinction is in the marketing message’s communication channels and the origin of communication with the target.
Traditional marketing involves offline sources like media, print journals, direct mail, telephones, and outdoor advertising. On the other hand, the digital marketing method consists of online tools like websites, social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, inbound marketing, content marketing, affiliate marketing, and sponsored traffic.
Advantages of Combining Traditional and Digital Marketing
Many businesses still consider the objectives of traditional marketing to be different from those of digital marketing. As time goes by, some have started seeing the importance of combining the two.
Traditional marketing aims to improve your business’s image, just like content marketing through the creation of blogs. Sometimes, you can deliver the message on a personal basis to your customers’ emails.
If you combine the two marketing strategies, you are at the advantage of reaching out to a larger audience. Reaching out to a larger audience means that the chances of business growth are high.
How to Successfully Combine Traditional and Digital Marketing
As you have seen, you have a lot to gain from combining traditional and digital marketing. Nevertheless, you may find yourself wondering how to incorporate them successfully since it can be quite a challenging task. So, it would be best if you learnt how to do it. Below are some of the ways you can use to combine the two successfully.
1. Use Streaming Radio Ads
Nowadays, people still have favorite radio stations. Target them during peak times when they are looking for traffic updates and local news.
If you have a tight budget, some radio stations can advertise for free. However, buying the slots can give your commercials greater exposure since they will be on air during prime time when a lot of people are listening.
You may also consider buying online spots. Buy those spots on YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify. Additionally, you may utilize the spot to get to consumers through established podcasts. Podcasts are gradually gaining popularity, and their audience is different.
2. Use Geo-targeting Together with Billboards
Billboards remain to be one of the best ways for advertising for certain businesses. Previously, billboard advertising was not suitable for small business enterprises because they were expensive. Nowadays, billboards have become affordable, and they still communicate to a large audience.
Billboard advertising is combined with geo-targeting to gain extra utility for your money.
What Does Geo-targeting mean?
Geo-targeting aims at working with data on user’s information about their location as identified by their IP address. The advertisers will then communicate to them depending on their location.
It is considerably more sensitive to position outdoor advertising where prospective customers spend most of their time. That is if you know where they spend most of their time. You must acknowledge that billboards with detailed information about your business will function much better if they are placed where your business receives the most inquiries.
You can also advertise on the public transport means of that region or at events held in the area.
3. Promote Local Events Online
Local event advertising may be done effectively via your social media platforms and websites. The first step is to create a unique event page on your website. This way, the events will appear more serious in their eyes, and it will serve as an excellent site for all events information.
These pages should have sponsored content and intriguing videos. You can conduct a poll among people interested in attending the event. This will help you acquire new customers and expand your reach.
While doing this, you should keep in mind geo-targeting.
4. Combine Account-Based Marketing (ABM) and Activities
ABM is a new approach for marketing in Business-to-business (B2B). In this approach, each consumer is treated as a different market in ABM. Instead of engaging with a large number of prospective consumers, the attention is shifted to a smaller, specialized group that is genuinely interested in the product or service.
You can use ABM for events if you want your marketing strategy to succeed
How Can ABM Be Used for Events?
Marketing operations that primarily target consumers will almost certainly result in a loss of capital. Most marketers come to events with only their interest in mind, ignoring the demographics of the attendees. Money and time are lost as a result.
In ABM, lead lists are used in the preparation phase of an event. Most successful events are decided in this manner.
5. Consider Mixing Digital Content and print Media
Most consumers nowadays spend time on social media and other digital sites. At the same time, they also read newspapers and magazines, but they are not popular as the internet. The older generation majorly uses them, and they cannot be ignored entirely.
If you print an ad in a newspaper or magazine, don’t forget to include a link to your website. The link will help the reader to learn more about your company on their own. You may either publish the URL or use a QR code to make the process easier.
Closing Remarks
Some marketers may be tempted to leave low-tech conventional marketing methods in this age of technological advancement. Concisely, digital marketing performance is high compared to traditional marketing.
The debate among marketers about which direction of marketing to give their preference and make more investments in is unlikely to stop. Nonetheless, both traditional and digital marketing can complement each other and deliver tremendous results.
