How to blend offline and online marketing for a flawless business image
Apart from high-quality products and services, marketing is the key to obtaining new clients and turning your business into a success story. When done right, marketing can make the difference between a business that manages to improve people’s lives and one that tanks months after launch. Unfortunately, planning an effective marketing strategy is not the easier task and there are several cases where brilliant entrepreneurs had to see their lifelong dreams fail because they didn’t know how and where to promote. In the internet era, one major mistake that business owners make is assuming online marketing is all they need and completely dismiss certain offline marketing practices. Although the online-offline ratio has changed in the past, businesses have much to gain by blending the two. By leveraging the power of online and offline, you can appeal to a larger pool of potential customers and find unique ways to promote your business.
No need for a fight
Both offline and online media have readers and viewers — AKA future potential customers. So, instead of putting one category on a pedestal, understand that there is no need to exclude anyone. Instead, use them both for a bigger and stronger approach and grab their attention. Online marketing has a big visual impact with its images, animations, and videos, while offline values the bigger picture. You can even use both of them to cover all platforms. For example, business cards aren’t outdated in 2018. You can still print and share them with potential clients, but don’t forget to include a QR code or website address so that they can check you out online as well.
Create the marketing strategy
Firstly, before you start creating a marketing strategy, you need to set goals that you want to achieve at the end of the process. How well-known do you want your company to be? Is it a small company, such as a real estate agency, that you are trying to promote in your local area, or do you want to make a big investment to achieve worldwide fame? After you have set your goal, plan future steps properly. Also, before making any further move, set your budget. You need to know how much you can invest in marketing. Both online and offline ways of marketing cost money. But, since you are at the beginning, your budget is probably not high, so look for cheaper strategies, such as flyers and social media, and blend them together at the start of the marketing process.
What can you choose from?
You might wonder what exactly are the tools that you can use for both marketing techniques. There are various ways that can help you create an impeccable image for your business. Online marketing includes social media, video blogging, websites/ blogs, email marketing, search engine marketing, content marketing. Meanwhile, offline marketing could mean using flyers and brochures, radio, television, posters, or as the specialists from https://www.signomatic.com/ say, different marketing merchandise tools such as signs or banners, that can be great giveaways for people to remember your company and logo. Both ways help spread information and both have advantages and disadvantages, that is why blending them is the right move to make sure you get the results that you are looking for.
Create profile targets
Since customers are the key to success, profile your targets before choosing marketing avenues that you are going to use in creating and promoting your business image. There are many things that you need to acknowledge regarding future potential clients in order to know what is going to have the strongest impact. Knowing their age, interests, gender, or level of education will help choose ways in which they will come in contact with your brand. Online marketing might work for the younger generation that spends a lot of time on social media and websites, and it is very natural for them to see ads there all the time, but if you want older people who read the newspaper or watch TV to see your company’s name too and catch their attention, make sure to use offline marketing techniques as well.
Ask for feedback
Feedback is the strongest foundation that makes a business grow. Before you start the marketing process, organize a group target analysis and test the impact, but only after you have created a list of loyal customers that trust your business and come to you every time. Ask for their opinion when it comes to offline or online marketing. They are the ones that can tell you best how the information got to them and how they want to receive more of it moving forward.
Go with what works best
Since you have tested all marketing methods, now is the time to go for what works best for your company, according to your customers and the result you have received from the marketplace. Make sure you keep marketing your business on platforms that are the most efficient in order to increase the number of clients you already have.
Every company wants to find their way into clients’ hearts and achieve a flawless reputation. Marketing is key to achieving this, but regardless of the popularity of the web, offline marketing is still a valuable tool that you can use. Brochures, leaflets, and billboards can be as effective today as they were a few decades ago, provided that you stay creative and come up with ideas that capture the viewer’s interest. By blending offline and online marketing techniques, your business will benefit from more exposure and appeal to all demographics.
We hope you enjoyed this promoted piece as much as we did!
