Guest Author: Jessica Davis, GoDot Media
Tips to Integrate Your Offline and Online Marketing Strategies
A central message, many marketing mediums. Interactions between the mediums attract more eyeballs to whatever it is that your message is promoting, and improve brand experience. Offline advertising drives a majority of online search queries – integration is essential to being found where your prospects may choose to look and encourage them along the sales funnel. If you market traditionally and digitally, integrating the two is not a challenging task. Here are four tips that can help you start strong.
A smart internet marketing strategy – ‘Hashtag’ your way into prospects’ minds
Hashtags (#) let prospects in on what people are saying about your brand and invite them to join the conversation. You can integrate hashtags into your traditional advertising by including them in your flyers, brochures and banners. Hashtags are easy to remember and prospects are more likely to use them to learn about your brand online than using your website URL.
Hashtags identify topical interests that Twitterati (that’s 240+ million active monthly users) uses in its digital conversations to talk about brands, among a plethora of other things. Encourage guests at your company events to use hashtags in exchange for rewards. A good incentive to tag photos of your event on Twitter and Instagram will enthuse them and enhance awareness around your brand.
Incentivize the use of QR codes in your offline marketing collateral
For every prospect or customer with a smartphone, there lies the opportunity to interact with QR codes. Use fliers and other offline marketing collateral printed with QR codes (two-dimensional matrix codes) that allow prospects/customers to scan instantly on their smartphones to perform the desired action on your website or social media business page. Define the objective you want the QR code to achieve. Direct prospects to your ‘discounts and offers’ page or ‘new products’ page. Encourage customers to rate your product/service by taking them to your internal feedback system the way FedEx has done so successfully with their feedback fliers. Give them an incentive to perform this action. FedEx gives customers who rate their experience up to 25 per cent off on their next order.
Are you a local business? Requesting mobile check-ins at your physical store is one of the best online marketing strategies you can use
Mobile check-ins allow customers visiting your store to communicate their interaction with your business. Like hashtags, they are effective in bringing attention to your brand and making you appear likeable and exciting. Facilitating this mobile, social and local activity are Foursquare, Yelp and Facebook. It doesn’t take much to request customers to check-in on their mobile apps when they are waiting in queue at the cash counter or browsing through aisles. Not everyone may check-in, but those who do can support your marketing efforts in a meaningful way. To encourage customers, you can offer a free item or discount for every check-in.
Invest in paid search campaigns for products you promote offline
As prospects go online to learn more about products you are promoting offline, it makes sense to use paid search campaigns to help prospects find the products easily when they visit popular search engines. It is a lost opportunity if they are unable to find you online after being motivated by your flier. In the case of products that you are promoting heavily offline, you can consider increasing the budget for top placements in paid result results.
When you are aiming for such a seamless integration, match the look and feel of your online and offline marketing, and examine the use of the same keywords for both campaigns to stay front-and-center in prospects’ minds. If you are not keen on paid search, you can create custom webpages dedicated to your offline campaign. Add custom URLs to your offline marketing and track your campaign without breaking a sweat.
What methods have you used to integrate your online and offline marketing? Share your tips and advice.
About the author
Jessica Davis is a Content Marketing expert at Godot Media, a leading content writing company. She works with other eBook writers to create relevant and engaging content for businesses and individuals. She is also interested in technology, social media and fashion.