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Traditional marketing still moves us. Whether it’s an eye-catching billboard, a promotional magazine article, trade show presentation or funny TV commercial, traditional targeted marketing still works. But it’s always been tough to prove its direct impact on the company bottom line.
The Web is changing all of that. Now, traditional marketing strategies and tactics can drive people to your Web site or other data portal, where you can capture valuable information to learn which messages, mediums and strategies work best, how to drive repeat business and have proof that your marketing investment boosted the bottom line.
While it’s maybe not as exciting as TV or Internet advertising, direct mail is the third largest medium behind TV and newspaper for marketing spending. And what it lacks in pizzazz, it makes up for in measurability and the fact that you can personalize a message to a customer. In fact, direct mail gets more attention than any mass media message. People rarely just throw mail away without sorting through it first.
Smart media planning and buying no longer rely on just traditional ad avenues to establish and promote a brand. Sure, there’s a place for mainstream media, but in a cluttered environment, a handful of traditional ads just isn’t going to cut it. It’s important to keep your customers and clients on their toes. Brand consistency will always be important, but if you’re too predictable, you could be putting good ad dollars to waste.
Although newspaper readership has been on the decline for the past several years, local newspapers still carry 45% of all local advertisements. Newspapers offer three basic types of advertising: classified, display and supplemental ad inserts. You can advertise with a short production lead-time, there are low production costs and newspapers are great at delivering detailed copy and information.
Outdoor ads such as billboards and signage are great ways to extend the reach and frequency of a campaign and increase results. They provide geographic flexibility for targeting and can attract people with commonalities by for example, placing the advertising around a sports complex, in an airport, or surrounding a retail area.
With PR and publicity, you can reach audiences with a message that carries a great deal of credibility, because it’s coming from a trusted news or third-party source. When your company or product gets positive press, it breaks through the communication clutter and captures the interest of your customers and clients. While marketing primarily sells your products, PR sells your company itself.