Online and offline promotional marketing strategies

Website info on promotional merchandise:

Earlier in this guide we discussed how promotional merchandise can accelerate your marketing efforts. But don’t constrain your printed merchandise to solely displaying your logo and brand name. Why not include related online company information? For example, you could include your website information and Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn handles, all in a stylised font. In this way, the online presence of your company, which you have devoted painstaking labour and toil into growing a refining, becomes an extension of your company. One ironclad rule is that you should include your entire social media URLs and not merely the social media logo; otherwise you are just providing free publicity for the social network.

It provides a reference point through which onlookers who aren’t so familiar with your company can embark on further research and satisfy the itch of curiosity that your merchandise has elicited.

Consider using a tracking URL on the printed merchandise. By doing so, you can conveniently track which visitors have arrived from that particular source in turn providing concrete metrics on how successful the strategy is working.

A similar tactic is using QR codes. For those living under a rock, QR codes are those matrix-style barcodes that are popping up everywhere which you can easily can with a modern smartphone. The QR code then takes you to a special deal, website, video or other piece of media. They have soared in popularity of late, and help circumvent the mental legwork to remember a URL or company name.

Website info on printed clothing:

Similar to promotional merchandise, website and social media info should also be pasted onto the front of your printed clothing. With printed clothing, such as T Shirts, you get the added benefit of increased space and visibility. Thus, it is arguably more effective than promotional merchandise which is easier to gloss over or overlook. The same advice applies here to use unique URLs, QR codes and social media addresses. With the enlarge real estate, you have more freedom in how you will display these facets.

Couple this fusion of online and offline with an eye-catching design, then you are sure to get a few people to do some further research and dive into your company’s online presence, eventually leading to more sales and revenue.

Improve digital marketing with traditional marketing:

Digital marketing does not have to come at the expense of traditional marketing. On the contrary, traditional marketing should be used to bolster the digital marketing efforts. The main advantage of traditional marketing is that it acts as a catch-all net and appeals to a broad base of people. Digital marketing, however, is better for targeting specific groups and people. For example, you could use TV and print ads to implement a Call-to-Action that urges viewers and readers to visit your website. If your TV ad is displayed on a popular channel, then it will likely receive the viewership of a mountain of people and spur a respectable proportion of those to check out your website and services.

When you conceive of a TV advertisement, consider creating a singular Twitter hashtag by which people can find, reference and discuss the advertisement. Additionally, ensure they can smoothly transition from Twitter to your website. In the same vein, you could set up an advert specific Facebook group which promotes a forum for discussion and a chance to capitalise on your advert’s attention and convert visitors into customers.

Any awareness of your online operations that you manage to generate through your offline activities will undoubtedly be of benefit to your bottom line. Why not incorporate printed merchandise and printed clothing into the aforementioned TV ad? When personalised in the manner described above, then you are amplifying the effect of traditional marketing on your digital marketing efforts.

An additional tip is to package promotional codes within your promotional merchandise. For example, in your printed tote bags you could offer a discount code for 20% markdown that is redeemable online. In turn, by using analytics you can pinpoint how successful this strategy has been, based on the number of people that take advantage of the promotional code.

Improve traditional marketing with digital marketing:

The main way that digital marketing can augment your traditional marketing efforts is by supplying metrics that allow you to analyse and assess the performance of your campaigns. Subsequently, you can rejig and adjust facets of the campaign if the metrics demonstrate underwhelming results.

For instance, if you are receiving very few visitors through the unique URL or QR code on your printed T Shirts, this could point towards a problem with your design or the exposure of the garment. You can act on this feedback and switch up to hopefully see better results.

Or let’s say you place your latest TV ad on YouTube. The advertising experience on TV is very passive and one-directional. You broadcast the advert and people may observe it but are unable to offer feedback. Conversely on YouTube, you have a sense of the reach of the advert through view count. You can also enable comments, which will allow people to offer feedback that cuts through the confusion and pandering, truly reflecting the public consensus of the advert. This can then inform your advert choices in the future. When hashing out your traditional marketing strategy, you should use brand KPIs as a measure of the success of the strategy. These KPIs consist of direct traffic, brand search traffic, acquisition, conversions and revenue. If after launching a new traditional marketing strategy that is intimately linked to your online presence, you notice an uptick in any of these KPIs, then you know you are doing something right.

It should now be patently clear that digital marketing and traditional marketing should not be adversaries but rather bedfellows. By employing a general marketing strategy that comprises both of these elements, you are covering all bases and removing your company’s blind spots. Use analytics and data to gain accurate performance indicators of the success of your traditional marketing campaigns while exercising social media to muster up interest and eyeballs on these traditional marketing activities. And use your TV spot, gigantic billboard, promotional merchandise or printed clothing to usher people to your online touch points like social media and your website. A bird will struggle to sustain flight with just one wing and so will your marketing strategy. Employ both online and offline instruments to prosper.