With the advent of social media, many businesses have turned to online marketing to reach a larger audience. The Internet has become a new platform for the efficient circulation of advertisements and promotions through digital marketing channels such as email marketing and pay-per-click ads.
With people dedicating a lot of their time to their gadgets, marketing in the online world is relatively easy and cost-effective.
While studies have shown that digital marketing has led to a steep decline in traditional marketing, print media managed to stick even amidst the digital age. Newspaper ads and coupon programs are still effective ways to boost brand reputation.
Although online marketing is the more practical option nowadays, businesses like yours should not forgo the benefits of offline marketing. However, you do not need to choose between the two—an effective integration of the two can boost your brand to the fullest of its capacities.
How to Combine Online and Offline Marketing Tactics
Combining online and offline marketing, or cross-media marketing, can help your business appeal to a larger audience. It can widen the range of your market and deliver the most comprehensive impact. Moreover, in contrast to popular belief, it will not cost you more. Here are ways on how to integrate online and offline marketing tactics into your business.
1. Get to know your client
Your clients can come from different backgrounds and situations. They also have their preferred platforms and services. Before establishing a concrete marketing plan that includes both marketing means, you must know more about your targeted audience.
Listen and observe their attitudes towards your business. Determine their intentions and how they knew about your business. Did a friend influence their decisions, or did marketing play a huge role?
Do a social media analysis by evaluating their social media interactions and comments to help you determine and note their consumer behaviors. Surveys that intend to ask your customer’s interests may also play a vital role in getting to know your audience.
2. Establish goals and success matrices
Goals and matrices measure progress. Before starting any strategy, set goals that measure the impact of your changes and actions. Specific objectives per marketing channel allow you to monitor the medium’s efficiency and impact on your targeted audience. Taking note of your site’s weekly visits and impressions can help you track the rate of consumer attraction.
Average session durations, clickthrough rates, email subscribers and conversions, and mobile application users are also some of the numbers you need to take note of. Phone calls from newspaper advertisements for product or service inquiries and physical in-store visits are also relevant.
The channels with statistics that exceeded or reached expectations gained customer attraction. Meanwhile, those that have slow numbers may need further development and improvement.
3. Let those creative juices flow
With the goals and marketing framework already ironed out, it is time to get creative with your marketing strategies. Begin by brainstorming campaign ideas that may be appealing to the audience. Take note of their preferences and interests in crafting that master marketing plan.
Personalization of your campaigns to suit your potential buyers’ tastes establishes familiarity and brand trust. It makes consumers feel that the business can identify with them and listens to their needs and wants.
Moreover, creativity also allows businesses to showcase their corporate values in different, innovative ways successfully. Unique marketing plans help businesses to stand out from the competition. An original idea will enable consumers to identify the brand from a plethora of market offers.
4. Experiment with different cross-media combinations
From a wide array of cross-media combinations, some may be more successful than others. Hence, experimentation of various integrations will help you identify the best ones to utilize to reach your goals.
Start with a comprehensive list of both online and offline marketing channels you utilize. From your specific objectives, filter out the platforms that yield the best consumer attractions. Those marketing channels that obtain higher numbers may bring more benefits to your business.
From the filtered record of platforms, identify and pinpoint complementary channels where your buyers can have continuous interactions and conversations. Some examples are direct mail and email prompts. You can also offer online coupons they can use for traditional in-store purchases. SMS prompts and in-store promotions can trigger purchase decisions.
Patience is key
Crafting and detailing an impactful marketing plan is an arduous and time-consuming process. It takes more than just actively promoting on all platforms to achieve the most significant impact. A marketing plan that is sustainable and beneficial to your business’s goals requires careful considerations and detailed experimentations.
Even though the utilization of social media and the internet has become mainstream, there are a lot more channels you will need to consider to ensure a positive customer experience. Hopefully, these tips and tricks can help you with the evaluation and implementation of your cross-channel campaigns.
