Business Performance Marketing with a Digital Twist

Here are a few ways to successfully blend digital and traditional marketing.

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By Jonathan Musgrove

At one time, marketing to clients often consisted of buying commercial time on TV or radio stations, making use of print advertising or sending marketing messages through the U.S. mail. While all of these methods remain valuable options today, they are increasingly being joined by a plethora of digital alternatives designed to reach potential clients who spend a lot of time hanging out in the digital world.

In spite of these recent developments, many businesses and professionals are still not taking advantage of what digital marketing offers; instead, they are falling back on what worked in the past either because of habit or because they do not understand the power of digital. This is no way to move forward.

A message on a billboard provides the same opportunity to elicit a digital response from anyone who sees it.

However, choosing between digital or traditional approaches to marketing is not the answer. Here are a few examples of how the two approaches can be blended to produce great results:

• A text instead of a call. One of my clients, a financial professional, would buy TV time each month for a show during which he would talk about money issues. At the end of each segment, in an effort to generate leads, his firm’s telephone number would be displayed so that viewers could call if they wanted more information. Instead of posting that number to call, I advised him to post a number that viewers could text. This change might appear insignificant, but it proved to be extraordinarily consequential. The financial professional went from receiving about three responses per show to about 300.

• Use billboards and digital calls to action. A message on a billboard provides the same opportunity to elicit a digital response from anyone who sees it. Once again, instead of urging people to call, urge them to text. You can also include your website address in your billboard ad so those intrigued by what you have to offer can learn more there.

Work digital connections into all marketing materials. Likely, you have business cards, brochures or other marketing materials that people can hold in their hands. All of those should let people know how they can find you online, whether it’s on your website or social media channels. By the same token, if you have speaking engagements, you can put that information on a display poster or include it in a PowerPoint slide. Since people always carry their phones, if they see how to find you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or wherever, they may follow you right then and there.

The most dangerous thing I hear people say is that digital marketing is the future, but that’s not true because the future is already here. Advertisers globally spent more on digital advertising than on any other medium in 2017. If you keep kicking the digital can down the road, by the time you catch up to it again, your competitors will have already passed you.

Jonathan Musgrave is the owner and chief digital marketer for Steep Digital Marketing (www.steepdigital.com), which he founded in 2017. Musgrave got his start in the direct mail business, using his communication skills to craft powerful marketing messages that reached more than 1,000,000 households each month.