Traditional Marketing Still Has a Place in Digital Marketing

To a digital marketing agency like ours, it comes as a shock to learn that, sometimes, successful businesses aren’t maximizing their potential because they haven’t even tried yet to dip into digital marketing. Even more surprising is when we find out that small or medium-sized businesses have yet to consider digital marketing as a main avenue for overcoming the hardships of a budding business.

Many of these businesses are relying on traditional marketing tactics to drive their businesses. There’s nothing wrong with doing so; traditional marketing is named so because it is a collection of tried and proven methods of drumming up business.

Traditional marketing includes such classic approaches as:

• Print advertisement
• Newsletters
• Television commercials
• Radio spots

But in the internet-driven business world, we recommend keeping traditional marketing efforts around to bolster a much more robust digital marketing strategy rather than relying wholly on print, TV, and radio advertising.

It’s All About Support

Digital marketing covers product and service-selling strategies for all current internet-based channels. That includes such advertising pathways as social media, user-experience-backed web design, ongoing content creation, and email marketing. All digital efforts, however, have room for support from traditional marketing.

It’s especially true for businesses that rely heavily on such sales methods as traveling sales teams, referrals, and cold calls. Having tangible advertising material on hand to support sales teams in their marketing efforts, especially when it points to digital resources, is still a reliable method for boosting the effectiveness of sales.

What Types of Traditional Marketing Fit into Digital Marketing Campaigns?

There really is no wrong answer, but there are certain traditional marketing materials that tend to be more effective when support digital marketing than others. You’ll likely find the most utility in:

• Leaflets – Single-page informational flyers can give salespeople an offline means of sharing relevant company, product, and service information with potential customers in scenarios that don’t ordinarily involve immediate connection to the internet or screens for presentation.
• Brochures – Brochures and pamphlets offer even greater opportunity to showcase products and services and provide in-depth information on them in an easy-to-read format.
• Branded Merchandise – Selling or handing out branded merchandise creates a permanent advertisement that will keep you top-of-mind for serious potential clients and customers, but creating the merchandise comes at a hefty price.
• Business Cards – Business cards that carry professional information and help direct customers and clients to your online resources are still a viable option for making connections, especially when a particularly wide-reaching convention or meeting comes up.

While radio and television ads still increase awareness and bring in the occasional lead, they are rapidly becoming less relevant, trusted, and effective. They also tend to compete with, rather than support, your digital marketing efforts, even when traditional marketing ads point back to your digital assets.

Who Performs These Tasks?

Employees at digital marketing agencies work hand-in-hand with one another all day, which means they are always picking up relevant and useful skills that can be used to drive traditional marketing efforts.

Content creation teams are skilled at outputting copy for traditional marketing, even if they haven’t worked outside of the digital realm before. That’s because the skills necessary for digital content creation translate easily to traditional marketing – unfortunately, it doesn’t work quite as well the other way around.

Paid search teams are also adept at writing copy, especially for advertisements that need to be dense with information. All copy can be adapted to print media by graphic artists and web designers who will work together to build user-friendly materials. SEO teams may also get involved to make sure that print materials support digital efforts with maximum effectiveness.

It won’t hurt to ask your digital marketing agency if they are prepared to handle traditional marketing materials, especially if you’re already on track with a successful digital marketing campaign. Even if your agency is unable to handle your request, there are teams available elsewhere with the skills and know-how to boost your digital marketing strategy with traditional marketing.

At Leverage Marketing, we’re not afraid to dive into some traditional marketing. Learn how we can support your marketing efforts with a digital and traditional combination today!