Strategic marketing is at its peak. If you look at reviews and studies on our behavior, you’ll notice a surge in digital consumption.
As an example, an average American will spend 24h per week online, which translates to several hours of screen time every day, whether it’s on our phones, tablets, or computers.
This rise in digital use has inspired many a marketer to use the World Wide Web as the main place of interaction and advertising for their brand, wanting to stay connected to their audience.
Alas, the digital world, as powerful as it may be, is still not the only one companies can rely on to stay relevant. The usage of traditional, also known as offline marketing is equally necessary for a balanced brand presence.
This offline-online harmony is what too many modern brands are missing in a desperate attempt to gain more digital visibility in a sea of other digital brands.
While this seems like a noble pursuit, if you truly want to gain that competitive advantage and help inspire your customers to build an emotional bond with your brand, you need the best of both worlds to work in your favor.
Here’s how you can do just that.
Geo-targeting as a way to inspire a purchase
Nowadays, most of us allow our devices, such as our mobile phones, to track our location so that we can find directions whenever we need them and get notified when something might be to our interest.
The practice has inspired the use of “geo-targeting”, a marketing tactic that allows brands to tailor content depending on where you are.
So, when you find yourself in Spain for a week-long holiday, your ads on social media will likely be in Spanish and show their own brands.
This is where it gets interesting: when you like and follow a brand and let them track your location, you can actually get “pings” when you’re near their store.
To be even more specific, those pings will help you determine if there’s a sale going on that you might be interested in, or if you can get a personalized discount if you head straight to their store and show them the coupon they send you.
This simple, but very powerful technique helps brands merge the online with their brick-and-mortar existence and help their customers enjoy a very personal experience from the moment the digital interaction begins, all the way to the moment they leave the store with your branded bag.
Promote online with the help of printed
If you’re one of those businesses that have disregarded the importance of brochures and you’re wondering why the interest in your product range at certain events is waning – this one is for you.
One of the most efficient ways you can actually mix and match between your physical goods and your online presence is by using promotional items to introduce your customers and audience to the most relevant digital outlets you have.
More brands rely on professional printing services such as those at Promotional Centre to design high-quality promotional products that are branded and that carry their digital “footprint” for greater visibility.
When you’re handing out your business cards, add your email address, and when you’re giving out brochures, add discount codes on a few of them for your webinars and online purchases.
It sounds simple, but it has the power to garner more interest and interaction than your typical caps with logos and flyers with nothing but paragraphs of information. Lead them to your digital pages through your printed ones for greater conversion rates.
The revival of direct mail paired with email
Using email campaigns alone is not a rare practice, and it can be quite a fruitful one when done right. On the other hand, very few businesses today use direct mail, and relying on direct alone cannot be a sustainable system to market your brand.
However, when you mix and match between the two, you get a winning combination that brings together the convenience of digital communication and the personal touch of a hand-written note.
What does that mean for your brand? Greater brand recognition, customer satisfaction, and loyalty.
It’s important to note that the printed mail is what makes you stand out.
It sends a clear message that you care about each individual customer enough to take the time to craft those letters, print them on branded papers, and mail them by hand.
It also shows that you’re not lazy when it comes to going that extra mile to make those special moments such as birthdays and holidays extra special – especially if you infuse the direct mail with a digital coupon code, a gift card for digital purchase, or a personalized discount for their loved one.
Online efforts for offline events
Just like you’ve used those brochures during conferences to promote your webinars, you can use your digital presence to help draw a bigger crowd to your local events.
Since you wish to target a very specific group of people, you can use sponsored, targeted ads on social media, search engines, and websites to get more visibility for your events.
On the other hand, you can also use social media event creation to quickly establish how many people are interested in your events, and create digital registration for offline gatherings.
To make digital work even harder for your offline game, use live streaming during the event itself to inspire even more interest among those who decided to stay home.
Wrapping It Up
Using both online and offline marketing is not a new concept at all. However, as many modern brands invest heavily in digital and neglect their offline campaigns, it’s important to raise awareness of how the two can work in unison successfully and help your brand stand out from your competitors.
