
Offline and Online Tactics for Effective Marketing
In today’s world of marketing, it can be challenging to determine whether to use offline or online channels to reach your target audience. However, why not consider utilizing both methods to increase exposure and significantly enhance your returns? While many prefer online channels, such as social media and email marketing, not everyone is online 24/7. For instance, Baby Boomers, Traditionalists, and Gen Xers may favor offline channels such as TV, newspapers, and radio. By incorporating direct marketing through well-designed brochures, you can effectively reach your target audience with important information about your products or services. Remember that your brand doesn’t exist solely online but in the minds of your customers across multiple channels.
Recent data indicates that integrating digital and direct mail marketing resulted in a remarkable 63% increase in response rates, a 68% increase in website visits, and a 53% increase in leads.
Here’s how to unify offline and online marketing strategies:
Maintain Brand Consistency Across Your Marketing
Always deliver messages that are in line with the identity and values of your brand. Use the same logo design, colors, fonts, and styles across your offline and online marketing. Your brand should be easily recognizable across all touch points. The last thing you want to do is to confuse people. Not using a consistent approach when it comes to marketing decreases your chances of generating leads or sales. Brand consistency is a collaborative effort. Encourage employees to learn the brand values, brand message, and the story behind them. Becoming a household name can be tough if you don’t have a solid backing.
Consumers are more likely to buy a product or service from a brand they recognize. By recognizing your business from consistent branding, people will begin to feel like they can trust you. They know what to expect from you. Always use your logo in the same way, make sure the colors, fonts, and styling are unique to your brand, and keep the core message at the heart of all marketing. A marketing calendar can help you stay on top of campaigns. You’ll be able to coordinate multichannel campaigns, schedule email blasts and social media ads, and review performance to adjust future efforts.
Narrow Down the Search Intent
If your online content is fantastic, but you have absolutely no offline presence, you’re missing out on a valuable chance to connect with your customer base. Create content that’s helpful both online and offline with search intent. Get a good understanding of what readers want to see. There shouldn’t be a mismatch between your target keywords and the search intent. More exactly, create relevant content that naturally resonates with the people who need the information. Leverage the power of the Internet in your favor. Search intent will help you make your blog posts more focused and refreshing.
Convert Offline Shoppers to Online Customers
Add digital info to your print advertising. Make sure your website is on all flyers, postcards, mailers, business cards, and so on. You can add a QR code to your print material. Don’t go overboard with customization because some screening apps don’t pick up complex designs. The QR code should still be recognizable. Most importantly, add links to your social media pages and encourage people to follow you online. You can incorporate user feedback into your print advertising. Word-of-mouth advertising is incredibly powerful. It’s recommended to customize your URLs so that people can easily find you.
Use customers’ physical location to inform them about your current promotions. For instance, when someone gets close to your retail store, they’ll be targeted with a text notification or app push letting them know what special offers are underway. If a shopper has paid a visit to your store, send them an email with an offer they can’t refuse. Show people you care about their interests and allow them to feel comfortable providing feedback. In the same way, you drive people to offline events, drive them to online webinars, meetups, and chats. Personalize messages so that people feel they’re cherished members of the community.
And The Other Way Around
Encourage online shoppers to visit your physical store. For example, you can use social media to generate interest in an offline event. An open day or themed event is a great way to showcase your products and get more people into your premises. If you want to host a successful in-store event that generates foot traffic, loyalty, and sales, plan ahead of time. Surprise your attendees with unique gift items. A gift bow transforms a gift into something special. In case you didn’t know, bows and satin ribbon go hand in hand. You can make a bow out of anything, but satin ribbon is so lovely. Take some photos and upload them to your website and social media pages.
An offline event is an opportunity to create connections. Just think about it. You can gather invaluable consumer data that will help your business along the road. The data often sits in silos, so it’s difficult to understand the bigger picture. You can use offline data to build solid audience profiles for digital campaigns. Better yet, you should combine the offline data with the online data stored in your CRM system. You can identify new customers in emerging markets or new target regions. Most importantly, you can create tailored experiences. Even if people share lots of common traits, they like to stay with their own opinions and choices.
Create A Successful Tracking Plan
Last but certainly not least, set up relevant types of tracking. Let’s start with offline marketing. Take advantage of classic promo codes. Create a one-of-a-kind code that’s not used anywhere else and offer it to customers as a discount. Another thing you can do is to include a “tells us where you found us” form at the point of purchase or conversion. Know exactly how customers are finding your business. You can invest more in those channels that drive results. Once the data is collected, you’ll need marketing analytics software to better understand the customer journey.
To see how well your digital marketing campaign is doing, you can use Google Analytics. You’ll know how many people visited your website, what they looked at, how long they stayed, and so on. Equally, you can use your CRM tool to track the sales processes and prospecting activities. You’ll benefit from features such as centralized location for audience data, segmentation and targeting of customer groups, and seamless connection to marketing channels. Tracking doesn’t need to be an overwhelming process.