One of the biggest reasons people fail in marketing their business well is because they deploy a random marketing strategy. Conversely, successful marketers develop comprehensive, well-thought-out marketing plans. Often the best marketing strategies include both digital and analog components.
Incidentally, it’s important to note that the type of products you sell don’t have to be limited by the marketing components you use. You could sell physical goods online and sell boxed software through analog marketing channels. If, for example, you were to sell clothes at wholesale prices, perhaps to B2B customers in the retail space, how would you go about it? Since clothes are tangible things, it might appear sensible to sell them from a warehouse. But Shirtspace.com, who sell cheap t shirts in bulk, leverage the power of dropshipping to sell their clothes online.
Here’s how to tap into the power of digital marketing and still use analog marketing alongside it:
Optimizing Your Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is a force to be reckoned with because it’s both cost-effective and highly efficient.
If you have an eCommerce store, you can change an offer in a day by replacing your current deal with new images and copy. You can then instantly inform all your customers through email marketing as soon as your new offer page has been set up.
This turnaround speed is almost impossible to pull off with a traditional storefront–because it would take you at least a week to switch out the merchandise, print out new display banners, and inform your customers of the new deal.
Digital marketing, too, can be executed with amazing speed:
- You can create email campaigns to launch a new product line.
- You can reach beyond local, regional, state, and country lines to market your business globally.
- You can measure how well you’re doing using website analytic programs.
- You can reach your targeted audience fast using Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising through the major search engines.
Expanding Your Analog Marketing
Since digital marketing works so well, many marketers tend to forsake analog marketing. But, this is a BIG mistake. Your audience lives in the real world.
Here are a few things you can do to reach your audience through traditional marketing methods:
- You can build instant goodwill by using promotional products to build your brand. Give away products with your name on it—like, pens, duffle bags, shirts, jackets, umbrellas, and mouse pads. People love free stuff, and other people, too, will see your name on the products.
- You can ease the tedium of the long commute with clever, amusing, or thought-provoking messages on billboards. Hundreds of motorists will become aware of your brand name in a week, thousands in a month.
- You can talk directly to your audience through radio advertising. Although not everyone will be interested in your product, you’ll still be able to connect with enough members of your target audience to get a high ROI.
- You can place your carefully written sales letter directly into people’s hands through direct mail. If the offer is presented in the right way, with, say, a perfect headline on the envelope, it will get opened. For instance, someone with chronic back pain who sees an envelope with a bold headline promising instant relief from back pain through a new type of chiropractic technique will be curious enough to tear open the envelope to read what your letter has to say.
- You can win people over by networking. When people get to know you in person, they are much more likely to have confidence in what you have to say about the benefits of your products. Shaking hands with plenty of people will boost product sales.
Choosing the Right Strategy
Usually, an 80/20 strategy will work well here. Since digital marketing is so efficient and cost-effective, it just makes sense to make this 80% of your marketing. But, analog marketing still has enough pull to make a difference. So, dedicate 20% of your marketing resources to it.
Deciding exactly what digital tactics and analog tactics to deploy comes down to testing. In the final analysis, you can only do a few things well; so, figure out the vital few that work for your business model.
