You Got Traditional in My Digital. You Got Digital in My Traditional.
You have this amazing product and you’ve developed one helluva company around it, now you want to advertise, right?
But there are SO MANY options to choose from. Do you go old school with magazines, newspapers, billboards, radio, or television? Or do you kick it with the young kids on the internet with social media or banner ads?
Well to help you out lets take a look at the benefits of each category.
Digital Media
Digital media is the new kid at school, and like most new kids he’s a little misunderstood. Once you get to know him you find out he's a really great guy but knows a lot more about you than you’re comfortable with but you can’t stop hanging out with him because he makes things easy like paying bills and reading news. Next thing you know you’re hanging out with him and neglecting your other friends like Newspaper and the Outdoors…
Basically, digital media isn’t going anywhere so it’s best to get comfortable and stop fighting the situation: your audience loves the internet. And so should you, assuming you know how to approach it. Unlike traditional media you’re not going after a large reach you might get from more traditional methods. What you want to focus on is a more targeted audience, which thanks to tracking data, you can do.
Targeting
Online ads, especially Facebook, have a fantastic ability to reach customers based on personal information like interests or income levels. If you want to target 25-30 year old female newlyweds who just purchased a home and are interested in having children: go for it. With the right ad you can capture some great leads.
Although, you’ll want to strike the right balance between broad and narrow targeting. Too narrow and you’re missing out on potential new customers. Too broad and you’re targeting people who could care less about what it is you sell. So while online advertising gives you the option of targeting specific audiences, don't let it go to your head. Finding the right balance may take time but “Rome wasn’t built in a day” and neither will your Facebook ads bring you leads.
Remarketing
Along with targeting based on interest or demographics your ads can target website visitors through remarketing. If you’ve ever been surfing the web and began seeing ads for products you’ve just looked at, and you've said to yourself, “How did they know? Who’s there? Stop following me!”… welcome to remarketing, you’ve just been added to a list.
The benefit here is that your ads will be able to target people who have visited specific areas of your site or taken certain actions. With the right ad and strategy in place these site visitors can be an invaluable resource. With a good understanding of your customer cycle and sales funnel you can run ads at just the right moment.
Long story short, digital media offers options marketers haven't had before. It allows you to think of your customers in more granular terms. The customer journey has more micro transactions and less broad sweeping steps. When creating your customer persona it's beneficial to get create more details and to better understand your customer.
Traditional Media
People have been selling products to other people since the invention of basic communication. Luckily, we no longer have to grunt at people in order to sell the latest furs. However, between then and where we are now, came the invention of print, broadcast, and outdoor advertising.
These mediums are looked at today by many as outdated methods of communicating your message. If you frequent some industry blogs you might see headlines like, “The Death of Print," “Where has Radio Advertising Gone?”, and “Blah, Blah, Blah: Television Blah.” However, what these articles fail to comprehend is that traditional advertising is far from fading into the blackhole of nothingness, we’ve merely invented new ways to fill the gaps.
Reach
Traditional media continues to have powerful reach when compared to digital media. Nothing yet is capable of replacing the ability to be in front of thousands or millions of eyeballs all at once. People are still watching live television events, if for any reason not to be left out. FOMO is powerful after all.
Recall
Ad recall, the likelihood someone is to remember seeing your ad, is much higher with traditional ads. This is because we have been more or less conditioned to ignore a digital ad. This is especially true of younger customers since they have been seeing banner ads most of their lives.
While this method might not always be viable for smaller companies or brands, it is perfect for a well-established brand. Larger brands are capable of affording the costs typically associated with traditional advertising.
If we were taking advertising in phases, we would likely place traditional advertising into phase two of the process since it is best used by already established brands. This isn’t to say it won’t be effective for smaller brands, it’s always a case-by-case basis and your marketing mix should work for your individual brand. Just remember: your 4 P’s of marketing are most likely different from everyone else’s.
When Worlds Collide
Traditional and digital media are like dinosaurs and robots. Two awesome things that on their own could make for hours of entertainment but when brought together create an unholy combination of awe-inspiring wonder. Like the cover of an 80’s metal album, you can’t imagine how it was thought up.
As traditional is covering the broad audience with its massive reach, digital will swoop in and pick up the smaller targets with its robot-like precision. When your brand has reached the phase that allows for both traditional and digital media to be used you will be able to create effective strategies that cover both brand awareness and direct response.
For instance, by running outdoor and newspaper ads you will be able to appear more times in front of your audience with branding, messaging, calls to action, or your url. With a high enough frequency ad recall kicks in and then the audience is thinking about your brand as more than just a photo in the paper. They begin searching for you or your product online.
This is when search engine marketing comes in and is able to capture them at the right moment. Once they’ve hit your landing page you add them to your remarketing list and get them with another set of online ads. Potential customers who have made it to a certain point in your sales funnel start seeing your branding as they surf their favorite sites. With the right call to action you get them to come back to your site and then BOOM… you got yourself a lead.
With the right combination of traditional and digital media a successful campaign is in reach.
Any questions? Contact us and we'll gladly help you out with your marketing strategy both digital and traditional.