With the advent of massive social media advertising, internet banner ads, and direct email marketing, many companies have abandoned tried and true marketing methods to go digital and boost their firms online presence. But going exclusively into a cyber-marketing strategy can be a big mistake. We can’t neglect the amazing speed, versatility, and customization of digital marketing. But what’s often overlooked is the ability to use these tools jointly with the traditional marketing strategies to build power for both components.
As you develop your advertising and publicity campaign, consider some of the ways that the old dog can do new tricks.
The Practical Items
While blank, generic packaging may be cheaper, custom boxes are a walking billboard for your product. When shipping companies deliver your boxes, you rent out the driver as a part-time, temporary, under-contract spokesperson for you. Seriously! When your goods are delivered in a city full of eager-eyed consumers, they’ll catch a glimpse of your cartons as your other customers receive shipments.
At one time, that was all fine and good, but with digital marketing it’s even more effective to put your name out there on cardboard. Before computer marketing, potential customers had to catch an 800 number or address on your box in order for you to capture them. Now a simple URL–carefully chosen and memorable, of course–is all they have to remember. And with smart phones in everyone’s pocket, purse, and belt clip, they may be shopping with you before the first customer even opens the box.
The Promotional Items
What makes something memorable? Repetition. A billboard might get a view from a driver’s wandering eyes once a day, if it’s located along his or her daily commute. When you want to remind that customer again and again that your product or service is superior and you want their business, your name needs to be out there with items that spend more time in front of their eyes. Ink pens, note paper, mouse pads, coffee mugs…all of these items and many others will keep your name (and your website url!) right there in front of customers who may only suddenly discover they need something that you offer. When they do, you’re the first name in mind.
These items are cheap, durable, and aren’t pushy (and thereby off-putting) to their users. It’s not an ad. It’s just a pen. You’re just writing.
The Passive Items
Even if your entire retail or service operation is online, and your facility is a backstreet storefront, there is benefit to hanging a sign outside denoting what you do. Remember that even when the battery is dead or the 4G is spotty, a sign stands outside and lets people know that you’re a wonderful place for them to spend their money.
The same goes for event sponsorships like 5K charity runs or ad space on baseball outfield fences. Getting those placements keeps your name in front of people at times when they aren’t necessarily in your market, so that they have a good feeling about you–and an awareness that you even exist!–at the time when they need you.
Marketing–be it traditional television advertising or email marketing–is a complex thing. It’s costly, time-consuming, and can be overwhelming. Just bear in mind that good marketing targets your potential customers in the places where they will be, at the times when they’ll need your product or service, and in a way that they’ll remember when the time comes. For all the amazing technological advances there have been, you’re selling yourself short if you fail to incorporate the new with the old and use them in concert.
