5 Brilliant Ways to Combine Traditional & Digital Marketing

Traditional marketing is still a valuable B2B asset. And the art of synergizing traditional marketing with digital marketing is worth mastering. Here’s how.

Long-term business success requires organizations to transform, innovate, and take risks.

This principle drives companies to embrace the latest high-tech products and services to ensure they don’t fall behind in the digital economy.

Unfortunately, the integration of new martech sometimes comes at the expense of discarding traditional tools – a potentially costly mistake.

Traditional marketing is still a valuable asset for any B2B organization.

And as new technologies emerge, the art of synergizing traditional marketing with digital marketing is worth mastering.

In order to realize the full potential of new digital tools and move leads down the funnel and ultimately convert buyers, marketers need to employ a holistic, omnichannel approach that retains a role for traditional marketing.

The digital revolution has greatly enhanced marketers’ ability to reach, engage, and convert their ideal target audiences.

But traditional marketing tactics like direct mail, networking, and cold calling are still vital for building a memorable and ultimately, profitable brand.

Building an effective marketing strategy means reaping the best of both worlds by seamlessly integrating new channels with traditional assets.

Here are five ways to combine your traditional and digital marketing.

1. Cold Calling + Intent Data

There is an ongoing debate around cold calling and whether it’s still an effective strategy.

Should we leave it in the 1970s or defiantly proclaim that cold calling is not dead?

When intent data is added to the mix, the cold calls of yesterday could become the warm calls of tomorrow.

By incorporating intent data into the cold calling process, marketers can reach better-qualified prospects, while foregoing contacting the least promising contacts.

By signaling which prospects are most likely to convert, intent data makes cold calling far more efficient.

Prior to making a call, marketers can use intent data to identify:

• The prospects that are looking for their solution.
• What other solutions they may be considering.
• What context clues might be telling about their readiness to buy.
• How to evaluate and address the prospect’s specific needs.

Armed with this critical information, sales teams will see conversion rates skyrocket.

Every marketer strives to learn as much as possible about their prospects.

When it comes to cold calling, an inherently intrusive tactic, LinkedIn profiles and firmographics simply aren’t enough.

To optimize conversion rates and reduce the stress for the sales team that comes with calling unqualified prospects, intent data is the critical missing piece.

2. Print Media + Deep Media Nurturing

Successful marketers understand the value of developing and nurturing buyer relationships at every stage of the sales funnel.

They’ve cultivated a buyer-focused mindset that is wired to drive more sales at lower costs and adapt according to the shifting buyer journey.

With the rise of deep media nurturing – an integrated, omnichannel strategy that employs the full range of digital assets – marketers have already taken lead nurturing beyond the inbox.

And now, the savviest marketers are going a step further by expanding lead nurturing beyond the digital space.

Running ads in digital magazines using premium programmatic display is a popular deep media nurturing tactic.

And while print media is obviously not as prominent as it once was, there’s a reason why print editions of digital magazines are still in circulation: audiences read them.

If the goal of deep media nurturing is to reach prospects across multiple channels to increase conversion probability, it makes sense that incorporating print media advertising into the mix will accelerate conversion rates.

Aside from being an additional touchpoint, print media has several unique advantages.

Compared to their digital counterparts, for example, print ads are seen as less intrusive and have a much longer shelf life. A print ad in a cybersecurity magazine will be seen as long as a physical copy of the magazine exists.

Moreover, print media provides more flexibility when it comes to ad placement.

Unlike programmatic display advertising where placement is primarily determined by digital bidding on advertising exchanges, in print media, marketers control exactly where their ads are placed.

Finally, just as the promise of deep media nurturing relies on crafting customized messaging attuned to the buyer’s journey, print media allows marketers to get granular and target their audience in niche industry publications with relevant messages.

3. Events + ABM

Today, virtually all successful B2B marketers rely on Account-Based Marketing (ABM) to target and engage accounts that are most likely to convert.

Leveraging the targeting power of ABM with the intimacy of live event marketing can help marketers realize the full potential of both.

A top-class ABM technology stack will not only help practitioners hone in on their most lucrative accounts but also get a prioritized view of the key decision-makers (and influencers) at a target account.

Putting this marketing intelligence to work will aid any professional in planning – and ultimately, executing – a high-impact event engagement strategy.

As marketers narrow in on the best-fit accounts, they have to monitor the online activities of their targets and identify the signals that may trigger the event outreach.

One way or another, every group of targets will signal their interest in attending or sponsoring a specific event.

ABM technology gives marketers access to real-time insights based on their accounts’ actual online activity and allows them to act on these signals.

ABM also enables marketers to de-prioritize low-yielding industry-events.

How?

By pinpointing must-attend events and the exact locations of the most valuable contacts within the target accounts.

Knowing which trade shows a target account is sponsoring or attending enables marketers to allocate resources to the highest-impact events and locations.

Once the event (or geographic region) that may feature the ideal prospects is identified, marketers should determine which decision-maker is ready for a one-to-one conversation.

In-person communication is the unifying piece of a thriving ABM campaign simply because it encourages the richest two-way value exchange between a marketer and the target accounts.

Utilizing the full power of ABM to gain maximum insight into a prospect enables marketers to foster authentic relationships founded on a comprehensive understanding of the prospect’s needs and buying habits.

4. Traditional Content Platforms + Geotargeting

Traditional content platforms like billboards and banners are making a resurgence in B2B marketing, helping to drive brand awareness, reinforce brand messaging, and engage new audiences.

To optimize the impact of this traditional advertising platform, marketers can integrate geotargeting – a technique that determines the geolocation of a website visitor and delivers tailored content to that visitor based on their location.

By pinpointing prospect locations, geotargeting gives marketers a better understanding of their buyers’ personas and their journey maps, enabling them to advertise content where it’s most likely to be seen and remembered.

Placing messages in strategic locations creates brand equity in the areas that matter.

The right target location could be a conference, a sports arena within the vicinity of the audience, or a bus whose route is in a business district where several target accounts are headquartered.

The marker of a good strategy is the extent to which it speaks to the right audience at the right time and in the right place.

Marketers can use geotargeting as their compass and leverage location data as a powerful strategy for personalized content outreach.

5. Direct Mail + Lead Nurturing

While lead nurturing is integral to conversion rate optimization, the sheer volume of online exchanges increases the odds that digital communications end up in digital spam.

A prudent tactic to hedge against the digital message being drowned out by the unquantifiable volume of online content is to augment lead nurturing with direct mail.

It might seem like a blast from the past, but at the current rate of inbox saturation, it’s a strategy that works.

The underlying idea is to send prospects something relevant and of value that will help a brand stand out.

If five follow-up emails fail to elicit a response, what are the odds that the sixth email will convert?

On the other hand, a follow-up in the form of a physical letter, a postcard, or a thoughtful gift can be the differentiator that triggers a prospect to consider the offering and agree to an appointment.

The endless personalization opportunities that direct mail entails can go a long way toward building trust by speaking directly to the prospect’s needs.

It makes them more likely to respond and move down the sales funnel.

Conclusion

In the era of unprecedented technological innovation, some marketers might be tempted to abandon the low-tech traditional marketing channels.

But far from being antiquated, these channels have the potential to significantly bolster marketing initiatives.

Leading organizations are currently reimagining the interplay between traditional and digital marketing, employing a holistic mix of the old and the new to create rich forms of engagement that accelerate conversion rates.

Driving ROI is not just about implementing the latest technologies.

It’s about evaluating how to strategically deploy each marketing capability in the service of broad marketing objectives.

Abandoning capabilities just because they’re not new or “cutting edge” is shortsighted and ultimately, counterproductive.

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This article is written by Alexander Kesler and originally published here

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