Digital marketing is the future. But that doesn’t mean you should ignore the present—or the past, for that matter.
It’s true. Social media, email, search engine, and other types of digital marketing have the potential for immense success. But at the same time, they build on fundamental principles that have always been true. And, even more importantly, they’re at their best when they integrate with offline marketing strategies that have been successful for decades.
In other words, don’t ignore offline marketing strategies just because of a shiny new toy. Instead, it pays to find ways to combine all of your marketing strategies into a more integrated approach that ultimately helps both your business and your customers. These six tips can help you get started to move in that direction.
1. Drive Offline Audiences to Your Online Presence
First, and perhaps most obviously, you can use any touchpoint you have with your audience that’s not digital as an opportunity to drive your audience online. That can take any number of shapes:
- Encourage store visitors to like your pages on social media
- Include links and QR codes on your printed materials
- Use your website as a call to action on print, radio, and local TV ads
- And more
When customers engage with you through any type of offline marketing, they’re inherently more engaged than their online counterparts. It’s up to you to leverage that engagement. Driving them online can help, especially if you have a strong online presence that provides them with more content, more context, and more opportunities to interact with your business and their peers.
2. Ask for Online Reviews at In-Person Touchpoints
One more specific way to drive offline audiences to your online presence is with online reviews. We know, of course, that reviews have become a core part of online marketing; the more positive reviews your business gets, the more likely it will become to show up prominently on Google searches, Yelp reviews, and more.
But reviews don’t just happen automatically. In fact, left to their own devices, customers with negative experiences will become much more likely to leave you a review than those who loved their business with you.
For that second audience, you might need to prompt a bit. And there’s no better space to do that than at your in-person touchpoint, where they’re most engaged with your business. Make it easy for them to find you online and leave a review, building that online-offline connection in the process.
3. Leverage Online Data for Offline Efforts
One of the reasons online marketing has become so popular is its richness in data for marketers. If you know what you’re looking for, you can learn about anything from your ideal target audience to the most relevant channels, most convincing messaging, and more.
That data, of course, can’t only be used for other digital marketing efforts. Instead, it can become just as beneficial for you as you plan your offline marketing initiatives.
For example, you can determine your target audience through the types of people who tend to visit your website. You can then use that data to create better visuals for your offline marketing strategies to better represent and engage that audience. Similarly, digital A/B testing can help you hone in on the messaging that resonates most with your audience, which in turn can shape the way you build your offline messaging as well.
4. Dig Into the Possibilities of Immersive Experiences
Perhaps the most advanced way to combine offline and online marketing is through immersive experiences in the form of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). Both are intentionally efforts to combine the two realms that, when executed the right way, can become powerful ways of engaging your audience.
Take AR as an example. If you sell products online, you can build an app that uses your audience’s camera app to show what that product would look like in their environment. VR even goes one step further, creating virtual experiences that emulate the real world to combine your online and offline experiences.
Both help you bridge the barrier between the two otherwise disconnected approaches to create a more comprehensive, integrated marketing approach.
5. Take Your Content Marketing to the Next Level
We tend to think of content marketing as an online strategy, fueled by its ability to make blog posts, social media pages, and websites shine. But that’s far from the only place where you can leverage your content.
In fact, some of the same content can work just as well in a printed brochure or flier. Your video might become the fuel for your next TV ad, or play on a screen in your store. A blog post can be included in a relevant industry publication.
Content marketing works because it creates authenticity and credibility. But it also takes time to build. Finding the right outlets to post and repurpose your content, including offline channels, can significantly boost your ROI.
6. Combine Your Online and Offline Reporting
Finally, integrating your offline and online marketing efforts cannot be complete without considering the two holistically as you evaluate your efforts. Wherever you can, connect your online and offline reporting to create a full, comprehensive view of your entire marketing budget.
QR codes and URLs can be trackable for your online reporting. Other efforts, like billboards, can be more difficult to track; however, you can look at your analytics and see if online traffic increased in areas where you placed your billboards. The more you can find these integrations, the better you can truly evaluate your marketing success and better direct your strategy.
Integrate Your Marketing to Magnify Your Business Success
Don’t think of online and offline marketing as separate tactics and channels that need to be distinct, or prioritized over another. Instead, think of them as tools in your toolbox, best if they work together to build a comprehensive, integrated marketing strategy.
Getting there is not always easy. Integration will take significant time and effort. But once you get there, you’ll see your marketing results magnify. A truly integrated online and offline marketing presence can increase your success exponentially, ultimately driving business growth for audiences who can engage with you on all of their favorite channels.
