5 Cost-effective Ways to Combine Digital and Traditional Marketing

Nobody would blame you for thinking that offline marketing has no place in a digital world. After all, it only seems right that you should craft your marketing strategy around the most profitable and effective tactics – some of which truly are digital. But that doesn’t mean that digital marketing is the be-all-end-all of modern marketing, quite the contrary, offline marketing is still a powerful tool you can use to set your brand apart and build a competitive advantage.

There are many ways you can craft a convincing marketing message, and many ways you can optimise that message to appear on numerous online and offline promotional materials. And the best part is that you can combine messages and marketing tactics to drive awareness, boost reputation, and build your online and offline clientele. Let’s explore the best cost-effective ways to combine digital and traditional marketing.

Combine direct mail with email marketing

Email marketing is one of the fundamental pillars of every digital marketing strategy. It’s cheap, it has the potential to expand your brand’s reach across the globe, and it can open up a direct line of communication between your brand and your customers. That said, reaching your customers’ digital inboxes shouldn’t be your only priority.

You should also try to reach their physical inboxes in order to build a deeper relationship, and actually incentivise your customers to open the mail. You see, when a person holds a physical letter in their hands, it shows them that you care, it has weight and bears a certain significance that email simply can’t replicate. And most importantly, a letter will almost always get opened, unlike an email. Be sure to combine email and direct mail in order to boost your reach and show your customers how much you care.

Use offline CTAs to drive online traffic

You might not have thought about it before, but the CTAs you use online can also work amazingly well for your offline marketing efforts. There is a lot you can achieve by integrating online CTAs into your offline marketing materials and collateral, and it all has to do with their effectiveness. You see, when you create offline CTAs, you need to do a lot of research to uncover their cost vs effect. Most of the time, you won’t even know if it was the CTA that drove people to your store.

But with online CTAs, you can measure their performance using specific KPIs, as well as monitoring and analytics tools. This allows you to cherry-pick your most effective CTAs and simply integrate them into your flyers, billboards, city lights, TV, and radio content in order to lead people to your landing pages. Simply put in a CTA you know resonates with your target audience and tell people where to find you online. In turn, you can expect your online traffic to soar.

Integrate branded products into social media giveaways

Social media is by far one of the most powerful digital marketing tools in your arsenal, as it has the potential to build up your brand’s reputation and authority, build social proof, expand your reach, and skyrocket your customer engagement rate online. But did you know that it can help you achieve this in the offline realm as well? The key is to integrate physical products into social media giveaways.

Giving out branded products to your social media followers is a great way to boost brand awareness, but you need to make them valuable and functional. Choose something they can actually use, such as branded promotional hats that they can take with them on the road, to the gym, or to work. It’s these types of products that will make the biggest impact, and most importantly, ensure that your investment pays off. If you choose a product people won’t use in their everyday life, you can expect it to end up in the trash in a matter of days.

Boost traffic to your physical store with online efforts

On the flip side, you can always use your online communication channels to promote your physical store and locations. It’s actually one of the most effective ways to reach the eyes and ears of your local demographic, because nowadays almost everyone is online – but not everyone likes to shop there. To appeal to your potential customers who like to see and feel the products for themselves, be sure to design your site for this specific customer type as well. Include mobile bar codes in your social media posts, and even put geo-tags in your emails to draw attention to your physical stores.

Advertise your web presence with offline marketing

And finally, consider how you can grow your individual online channels with specialised offline ads. Every type of traditional media can serve as a gateway for your customers to discover your online channels and your web presence as a whole. 

With that in mind, you can use offline ads to promote your site, yes, but you can also use them to incentivise people to join your email list, or to like you on social media, or even to guide them on their online shopping journey. The possibilities are endless, you only need to get specific and nuanced with your goals. 

Wrapping up

Traditional marketing is still relevant, even more so as the online world becomes oversaturated with advertisements, faceless brands, and spammy content. Implementing these tactics into your marketing strategy will allow you to break the mold and rise above the competition.