I now pronounce you digital and traditional marketing
Contents
The case for merging opposite marketing strategies
With the advent of technology and our increasing dependence on everything that beeps and buzzes, some have been saying that the traditional way of doing things is dead. We should have a funeral, remember the good times and move on with the Internet and technology steering the way. However, there is an argument to be made to use traditional marketing in advertising campaigns, as it makes for a more well-rounded and robust initiative.
Traditional marketing, at its basics, is likely anything found in Mad Men – magazine ads, billboards, bus stops and the like. If it was used for marketing purposes before 1997, it would likely been seen as traditional by marketers these days. Traditional marketing is still relevant and has its advantages, such as targeting a specific market and using the communication channels that they prefer to broadcast the marketing message.
On the other end of the litter box is digital marketing, which wasn’t a thing until the Internet and technology demanded that it became one. Think popup ads, the messages that interrupt your YouTube videos and corporate social media channels. Now, digital marketing holds a lot of esteem in the eyes of marketers for the main reason that it reaches a large audience for relatively little cost.
There are upsides and downsides to every type of marketing
Of course, there are advantages and disadvantages to each method that marketer’s need to be aware of when choosing what communication channels to use. With traditional marketing, it often requires more resources, resulting in higher costs to the brand. To optimize the message, marketers need to understand the target demographic, where they are most likely to view the advertisement, and create a call to action, all of which takes time, money and creative manpower.
With digital marketing, the main disadvantage is that it is almost too easy and inexpensive to make online ads. This allows for the market to get flooded and the audience is more likely to perceive the bombardment of messages as annoying and not beneficial. It’s extremely difficult to get an audience to pay attention to your ad, no matter how creative and unique it might be, if they’re not willing to sit through it, opting to close down the popup or, even worse, get an ad blocker. While it may be inexpensive to start advertising online, it is more expensive to maintain the advertisements and to make a digital ad campaign penetrate through to the target market is very expensive and takes a lot of expertise that doesn’t come cheap either.
Getting the best of both worlds
With digital marketing and traditional marketing having both their good attributes and their not so good attributes, many marketers are beginning to mesh the two, and hope that the combination creates a sort of synergy with them complimenting one another. A dual method marketing campaign can bring out the best in both methods – for example, a traditional marketing campaign that uses communication vehicles preferred by the target market can remind the audience of the brand’s unique personality and value, which often gets drowned out through online efforts. To compliment this, digital marketing campaigns can be used to remind the audience of the brand’s cool factor, and make it easy to find out more and even purchase the product with a couple of easy clicks. It’s like a match made in heaven, like cold pizza and hangovers or cats and cuteness.
This can be used in reverse too – let the reach of the Internet attract new customers, and then show them the product’s value with traditional marketing efforts – humourous commercials, innovative magazine ads and personable campaign efforts.
Knowing your target and aiming for the big win
Of course, to market anything properly, the product and the target audience need to be researched and understood. What good is a multi-pronged and expensive ad campaign for high-end suitcases when the target market would rather see the product on classy celebrities and fashion magazines? Knowing where the audience is, their preferred communication methods and how they want to see the product displayed will always be key to any marketing campaign, digital or traditional.
A good reason to integrate digital and traditional marketing methods is that more and more people are opting to go offline while others are solely plugged in all the time, and pay little attention to anything that is not in their virtual reality. Putting out only one type of campaign effectively means that a portion of the target audience is potentially getting ignored. So marry the efforts and be pleasantly surprised with the offspring it produces. If done right, it could be as beautiful of a marriage as Emily Blunt and John Krasinski.
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