Combining Traditional and Internet Marketing Strategies
Before you spend time thinking about how to combine traditional and online marketing strategies, you need to understand the differences that exist between them. When you recognize how conventional and digital marketing techniques differ from one another, it’ll be easier for you to integrate traditional and online marketing tactics seamlessly.
Traditional marketing is often referred to as outbound or offline marketing. It typically involves advertisements such as radio or television commercials, billboards, print ads and direct mail. Traditional marketing is considered passive while internet marketing is often designed to do more than just inform consumers about products and services.
Digital marketing is also intended to get consumers involved. While various platforms can be used for traditional marketing, the internet is used for digital marketing. Internet marketing is known as inbound and online marketing, and it often involves SEO and content, email and social media marketing.
Pros and Cons of Traditional and Online Marketing
Just like understanding the differences between them can help you combine traditional and online marketing, being familiar with the pros and cons of both kinds of marketing will also make integrating traditional methods into internet marketing easier.
The biggest advantage of traditional marketing techniques is that they’ve stood the test of time, with some having been around for centuries. In general, traditional marketing has a broad reach, which means conventional marketing is successful at reaching large numbers of consumers with a single ad or message. Another advantage traditional marketing offers is accessibility. Just about every consumer in America has access to television, radio and print media, so a wide breadth of consumers can see ads used in traditional marketing campaigns.
The biggest downside to traditional marketing is that it can be more expensive than online marketing. Naturally, this means one of the biggest benefits inbound marketing provides is affordability. Because it’s easy to change gears with online marketing, this kind of marketing is more flexible and responsive than traditional marketing methods as well. It’s also more targeted and focused. While digital marketing may be noticed by fewer people, the people who see online marketing messages have basically been chosen by the company responsible for the ad in front of them.
How to Combine Traditional and Internet Marketing Strategies
If you’re going to combine your traditional and internet marketing efforts, the best place to start is to see them as complements of one another. You can combine the active nature of internet marketing with the passive character of traditional marketing, so both techniques work together to grow your business. Although your print ads are meant to inform consumers about your products or services, they can also encourage shoppers to visit your website or follow your company on social media.
In addition to viewing traditional and internet marketing as complements, you should also recognize that integrating internet marketing into traditional marketing is an effective way to use more marketing channels overall. It’s a smart way to make your products and services attractive to more age groups, including digitally savvy millennials and senior citizens who may prefer more conventional advertisements.
Using traditional marketing to complement internet marketing and vice versa, as well as employing more marketing channels, are the first two steps toward integrating the two kinds of marketing. Making your messages more personal is the third step. Since you can use digital media to target highly specific groups, you can personalize your traditional advertisements so they appeal to well-defined groups of consumers on a personal level.
800response Capabilities
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Contact 800response to learn more about how our services can support your marketing campaign now.