We are in the age of digital marketing. There are companies that are made and broken by their digital marketing strategy, and it is not at all unusual for a company to be focusing all of its marketing resources digitally. While it is certain that digital marketing has opened up huge potential, allowing companies to be seen on the global stage and target highly personalized audiences, it is getting harder to be seen and heard in the crowded digital marketplace.
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With more and more companies competing by using the same tactics, there is something to be said for going back to traditional techniques. Supplementing your digital marketing strategy with these traditional techniques can be hugely beneficial for your business:
Signage and Geotargeting
Billboards are still one of the best ways to target potential customers by geo-location, and they can reach more than 90% of a local population. They are quite expensive (although that depends on where you’re advertising, you can advertise on a highway in an off-peak season for less than a hundred dollars a day), so they are not an option for many small businesses.
You can, instead, use banners, thinking of them as just smaller, more affordable billboards. Backlit and frontlit banner material are very responsive to printing, meaning you can use it to increase brand awareness to any passers-by, whether that is during the day or night. This form of traditional marketing goes hand in hand with geotargeted digital ads. Geotargeting, otherwise known as local PPC, is a highly useful way for businesses that depend on foot traffic, for example, brick and mortar stores and restaurants, to increase their brand awareness. Geotargeting allows you to set a location in which you want your ad to show.
When these two tactics are combined together, it hugely increases brand awareness and trust – usually without the customer being aware of the technique.
Mail and Email Marketing
Email marketing is a digital marketing technique that has been used for many years for lead nurturing, brand awareness, and customer loyalty. While email marketing is a very useful tactic, the average email open rate across all industries is 20.81%.
A great tactic for hedging your bets and ensuring that your words will be seen is to combine email marketing with mail marketing – cut through those saturated email boxes with some old-school snail-mail. You can even refer back to an email promotion that you have sent if you want your customers to be impressed by your personalized offerings.
You can also use snail mail as a last resort on customers who have not opened an email from you in a few months.
Print and Digital Content
Customers are very aware of businesses that use paid online content. There is a low bar for what passes for content nowadays, so one of the best ways for you to gain respect and legitimacy for your online content is to supplement it with printed media.
Believe it or not, the magazine industry, though dwindling, still has truck-loads of loyal readers, and it shows no signs of letting go. They are often niche publications so are a great way for you to target specific markets on paper while also targeting them in the digital realm. A two-pronged approach like that is something that few of your competitors will be attempting and is, therefore, something you should definitely explore.