Integrating Traditional and Digital Marketing

If you’ve been visiting us here at our blog for awhile now, you might be under the mistaken assumption that we strictly deal with digital marketing. We don’t, actually. There’s many pieces of traditional marketing that we incorporate regularly. We feel it’s crucial that companies work on integrating traditional and digital marketing, as that’s the key to successful long-term marketing strategy and implementation.

Integrating traditional and digital marketing is not difficult; in fact, you may already be doing so unknowingly. When your company applies the two approaches to marketing together, you maximize your effectiveness. You reach a larger audience, appeal to different groups of people and are altogether more powerful than either tactic on its own. With all these positives, it’s time to make integrating traditional and digital marketing not just an accident, but a focus of your 2017 marketing strategy.

Integrating Traditional and Digital Marketing

Before we talk about integrating traditional and digital marketing, let’s discuss what they are.

Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing is generally looked at as “passive” marketing. It’s the marketing you see in a magazine, on a billboard, in a newspaper, on the side of a bus, etc. We consider it passive because marketers don’t know exactly to whom they’re marketing. Who will see that ad on the side of the bus? Of course, there’s some targeting involved, as in the case of direct mail. Marketers can pick certain neighborhoods to send to and assume a certain demographic. However, between the two, digital marketing is much more focused on targeting.

Digital Marketing

Digital marketing includes PPC, social media, a company website and corresponding CTAs, SEO, etc. All of this marketing occurs digitally (as you probably guessed). Digital marketing targets its audience, usually by optimizing for what people are searching for. As an example, if a searcher types in “winter tires,” stores that sell winter tires should show up, whether organically (through SEO) or paid (through PPC/AdWords).  In the case of social media advertising, user demographics and likes/dislikes can also be used.

Complementing Tactics

Think back to the Super Bowl a couple weeks ago. How often did you see a TV ad that ended with “visit www._____.com to see the rest”? More than you’d think, right? That’s a perfect example of traditional marketing (the TV ad) working hand-in-hand with digital marketing (the website). Starting with traditional marketing and then progressing to digital marketing has proved to be effective for many marketers. The next time you send out a direct mail piece, include a CTA that directs people to a landing page. Because of that landing page, you’ll be able to tell what percentage of people who received the mailer took action. You’ll be able to see what they do after arriving on your landing page, too – what pages they visit, what buttons they click.

Expanded Reach

To reach the most amount of people, utilize both traditional and digital marketing. Consider that not all people use the same medium. Not all people read magazines or the newspaper. Some never see a city bus. Some are never on social media. To reach a broad variety of people, use a broad variety of marketing platforms. The best way to spread your message across many channels is to not focus too much on any one channel. Sure, you may have one channel that always performs highly, but it isn’t best practice to “put all your eggs in one basket,” as they say. Figure out which channels work the best for your company and then incorporate a healthy variety of marketing to each of them.

If the goal of your company is to maximize your marketing efforts, it’s time to focus on integrating traditional and digital marketing. Give us a call to get started at 262.303.4238.