18 Mar 5 Ways to Combine Traditional and Digital Marketing
There’s a notion that our digital lives are somehow separate from our actual lives. Here at Odd Duck, we find this notion to be untrue, to say the least. Our digital lives affect our purchasing decisions, our habits and hobbies, and even how we vote.
For better or worse, our digital lives and our “real” lives are inextricably linked. There’s no reason our traditional and digital marketing shouldn’t be, too.
That means that all of your digital marketing should shore up your traditional marketing, and vice versa. To that end, here are 5 innovative ways for you to integrate your traditional and digital marketing:
1. Include a digital CTA with all of your physical marketing
Not including a URL in your physical marketing is kind of like not including your location on every page of your website – it’s just bad practice. Whether you’ve purchased a billboard, a newspaper ad, or a TV commercial, you should include a URL.
It could be your homepage URL, it could be a landing page created to help you track the impact of your traditional marketing campaign. Whatever furthers your goals. But unless you’re going for a rogue campaign where mystery is the primary driver, you should make it as easy as possible for people to interact with your brand online. The cost of including a URL is minimal – it’s basically free digital marketing if you’re already committed to marketing in a particular traditional stream.
One of the few exceptions to this rule is storefront signage – you may not have the space to include your URL in a clean way.
2. Pair traditional marketing with digital marketing via geo-targeting
Out-of-home (OOH) marketing continues to be a popular way to attract customers. A notion that advertisers currently have is to create geo-targeted ads that display when a customer is near a particular billboard.
These ads need to be constructed very carefully: to some customers, an ad with the headline “We know about the billboard you just read” could come across as exciting, while to others it might just come across as creepy. Know your audience.
Geo-targeting can also work well in malls, or whenever a customer is near one of your brick-and-mortar locations. These ads can offer coupon codes to incentivize customers to visit you right away – after all, they’re nearby and they just got a discount. Fancy that!
3. Take a page from AR games
AR games are still at the bleeding edge of combining digital and traditional marketing. People tend to think of AR games as globe-spanning events, but you can easily host a local AR game that drives traffic to your website and your business.
You could, for example, create a scavenger hunt list, and post clues for the hunt online. When someone finds the item that you’ve posted, they can bring it in for a discount on their purchases.
Alternatively, you could place posters with QR codes around your city – scanning those codes can bring clients to a landing page that offers them something like a free sample of your product.
There are so many variants of this method that it would be impossible to list them all here – it’s one of the most creative ways you can combine your marketing streams.
4. Combine email lists with direct mail marketing
When it comes to print materials that can increase your sales, direct mail is still one of the top dogs. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, that’s (somewhat surprisingly) because of younger consumers who are more likely to trust direct mail.
You might have a white paper you’re particularly excited about – consider getting it in print form, and mailing it to clients who have requested it via email (with their consent, of course).
By providing them with something tangible, you’ll give your customers a sense that they received something for free – a physical document, complete with images, all for the low cost of signing up for your email list. That can seriously improve their impression of your brand.
5. Advertise local events online
Whether you’ve planned a wine and cheese night for the arts, or you’re holding a seminar on the best ways of conducting business valuation, online advertising is the way to generate interest. Get your speakers to post about your event on social media. Advertise the event on your own social media channels, and on your website.
Livestream the event. Take pictures. Post about your favorite moments. This is the perfect opportunity to integrate your traditional and digital streams – it’s easy to do, and mutually beneficial.
We’re only scratching the surface with these 5 ways of integrating your marketing – and any one of them is deserving of its own separate post. Have any questions about how you can merge your marketing streams? Get in touch with the team at Odd Duck Media today!