Seems like nowadays everyone is talking about digital marketing, pay-per-click campaigns, social media ads, search engine marketing, backlink campaigns, content marketing, and all other types of online business promotion. But, what about traditional marketing, print ads, TV commercials, event sponsoring. Have they gone out of fashion?
We don’t think so.
Indisputably, digital marketing channels have taken over the throne, but the classical way of promoting products and services hasn’t surrendered yet. The battle is on.
So, let’s see what traditional marketing has to offer.
Word of Mouth
This has to be an ultimate channel of promotion, for both brick-and-mortar stores and online businesses. There is no such thing as a personal recommendation from someone your future customers trust to get them to pick up the phone and call you or come knocking at your door, eager to hear all about your offer. This one is hard to beat.
Print Ads
You might say that print is dead, but we say long live the print. Sure, print media is on the decline, but there are plenty of publications that keep on surviving. And some of them appear stronger than before.
Take, for example, National Geographic, Time, Wired, along with a plethora of independent publishers, specialized publications for interior design, beauty and cosmetics, travel industry, retail, healthcare, green living, real estate, business and finance, and any other niche.
The key factor is to know your customers and design your print ads to attract their attention (the same as in digital marketing, right?). A great bonus here is that your audience is probably passionate about the topic and they get those print magazines in order to collect them and keep them for life.
TV Commercials
A TV commercial can be a true piece of art when created and produced by professionals. It can be a masterful format for storytelling, and you get to play with stories, make ad sequels if you want, or seasonal commercials, and event-based ones.
If your budget allows you, you may opt for showing TV ads during planetary sports competitions like the Olympic Games, Super Bowl, FIFA World Cup, and others. Also, sports events are a great opportunity to display your advertisements around the football fields, tennis courts, or Formula 1 tracks around the world.
Catalogs, brochures, and flyers
If you own a beauty salon or a hairdresser studio, for example, people from the neighborhood are quite possibly going to be your customers. So, you can print out flyers and brochures to give them away to locals. It could be an easy way to promote your business and gain new customers.
On the other hand, if you manage a car dealership, or you are a manufacturer of industrial spare parts, for instance, you might want to consider creating a catalog to represent all your products in one place. And, of course, have it designed, printed out, and ready to present it to your potential customers.
Catalogs are also a great piece of promotional material during trade shows, annual congresses, international conferences, or other industry-specific events.
Hosting Events to Promote Your Products or Services
Speaking of events, another efficient piece of the offline marketing puzzle is the possibility to host events. That way, you get to promote your products or services all over the venue, raise brand awareness with ease, meet potential clients in person, host a live product presentation, and have your target audience gathered together in one place.
Sponsoring Events to Raise Your Brand Awareness
If you don’t plan on becoming a host of an event any time soon, you can always choose to sponsor relevant events from your industry and ensure your brand presence in front of a large number of people from your target audience.
Besides that, if you manage a media outlet of any kind, be it a daily paper, specialized magazine, B2B publication, or a news portal, you can become a media partner of the event. In return, you’ll gain the opportunity to promote your media throughout the duration of the event.
Guerilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing campaigns are bold, creative, atypical, and unconventional. They take consumers by surprise, cause an emotional response, and instantly raise awareness about a specific cause, social issue, company, brand, or any kind of a service or a product. The campaign goal is to gain publicity, create a buzz, and ignite a discussion about the topic.
Such advertisements seem to appear out of nowhere, they pop up in unexpected places and represent a unique set of techniques and practices with the aim of establishing direct contact with the audience.
Final Words
Offline advertising opportunities are practically endless, and many of them still work very well. The word of mouth will probably never go out of fashion, while guerilla marketing can give your brand a boosted publicity and a creative opportunity for direct contact with your audience. Hosting an event or sponsoring one may do the same for your company.
As you can see, traditional marketing channels can usually bring you a highly positive return on investment. May we even argue that, sometimes, they might be more profitable than digital campaigns?
