Traditionally, marketing has been all about deciding how you want to position your brand, and then blatantly promoting the relevant USPs of your brand to your audiences. No doubt the same has worked, but that is hard because it is the best way to market a product or a service. The reason traditional marketing has shown results in the past is because of the significant reach it has. This doesn’t imply that traditional marketing strategies were not clever or well-thought out. In fact, many people watch the SuperBowl for the ads, instead of the game itself.
However, another SuperBowl related statistic shows how important it is for businesses to make the switch to digital. This year, the SuperBowl had the smallest audience since 2009. While this may be disheartening, the number was still over 103 million.
These statistics show the diminishing effectiveness of traditional marketing techniques while still demonstrating their power when it comes to reaching a large portion of the audience. Fortunately, marketers in 2018 do not have to choose and stick to one form of marketing. Combining the impeccable reach of traditional marketing strategies with the data-driven approach of modern digital marketing strategies, brands can effectively maximise the results of their marketing efforts. Let’s look at a few ways marketers can start doing this:
Drive Website Traffic With Branded Merchandise
Branded merchandise, not just limited to gifts, but visiting cards, leaflets, and brochures have helped brand create lasting top-of-the-mind awareness for decades now. By mentioning your website and social media handles on the same, prospects can be driven to your website. If your material is clever and useful, it is bound to generate curiosity within your audiences.
Moreover, as the effectiveness of other mass media diminishes, branded merchandise has seen no change in its effectiveness, and remains as relevant as it was a decade ago. Once your merchandise has landed a potential customer on your website, a great design, powerful copywriting, as well as offering real value can all contribute to converting them into a paying customer. Not to forget, when traffic on your website increases, search engines will begin understanding that it has something useful and valuable to offer, which in turn, may also improve your SEO.
Leverage The Power Of Events
Whether it is a local event or a national event where several competitors are present, events make audiences realise that there are real people working behind the brands they love. Marketing and community events are also great for demonstrating your products in action, which is a proven technique to build a stronger customer base.
Similar to branded merchandise, events can also be used to promote your online presence. At the same time, businesses that have been investing to build an online presence can use their online reach to drive more interest to their event. When prospects that are only familiar with your online presence get to see your product in action, or simply show up at the event, it becomes much easier to convert them into customers.
Not to forget, for small businesses, events are a great way to build a long-term relationship with their consumers, and online marketing is probably the cheapest way to make sure people show up to their events.
Referral Programs and Email Marketing
Both email marketing and referral programs have been around long enough to be considered traditional. However, unlike other forms of traditional marketing, neither of these have lost their touch of effectiveness. In fact, email marketing continues to drive higher ROI than other modern marketing strategies. For every $1 spent on email marketing, businesses can expect a massive ROI of $38!
Similarly, referral marketing incentivises existing customers by motivating them to bring in new consumers. This doesn’t just mean new business for your organisation, instead, it translates into one of the most powerful marketing a business can get, word of mouth marketing. According to research, recommendations from friends are the most credible form of advertising.
Businesses can use referral programs to build new, and long-lasting relationships. Referral programs can be promoted through email marketing to your existing email list. For those customers that have not signed up for your email marketing, the offer can be promoted on the website and social media channels.
Conclusion
As marketers, we don’t really have to make a choice between traditional and modern marketing techniques. In fact, with the advent of modern marketing, even budding brands that are working with a tight budget can smartly popularise themselves by choosing the right mix of traditional and modern techniques. This has changed the marketing game which was earlier dominated by big brands with endless marketing budgets.
