If you run a business, then you already know that marketing is a core activity that you must master if you hope to grow that business successfully. Some think marketing is especially critical when you’re just starting out, but even as you grow your business and you gain a reputation, you still need to market your business to keep gaining new customers and reach a wider audience. And, despite the increased emphasis on digital marketing, offline marketing isn’t dead.
However, planning and executing successful marketing programs is challenging. Part of the problem is that marketing nowadays offers so many options deciding which tactics to use and how to combine them effectively is extremely overwhelming. With the rapid rise of online platforms and with social media taking up a larger percentage of the marketing conversation, if not the marketing budget, it is more daunting and scary for those just starting out or who are used to offline marketing. Adding to the confusion, it seems as though every day a new marketer pops up telling us this is dead or that is dead and that this new strategy they’ve developed is the only way to be doing things. Of course, part of this is self-interest as relatively unknown and unskilled marketers vie for clients in an increasingly crowded field.
So, while it’s understandable that planning the optimal mix of marketing strategies can definitely be confusing, it’s a critical task. It’s also important to remember that marketing was around long before the internet, and offline marketing isn’t dead. In fact, it is actually a very simple concept, but many people try to overcomplicate offline marketing, thinking they need a totally different strategy.
So, in this post, we’re going to share with you why offline marketing isn’t dead and how, even if you run an online business, you should still consider using offline marketing as a means to grow your business. As an advantage, offline marketing helps drown out a lot of online noise.
Offline strategies haven’t changed:
As mentioned above, marketing was around long before Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram came along. Even small, local businesses used offline marketing tactics to grow their businesses successfully and some even grew their businesses from nothing up to multi-million dollar corporations, including household names like Walmart. Companies we all know and love today recognize that, although marketing has changed, the strategies themselves actually haven’t changed all that much. Instead, offline marketing strategies evolved and found themselves in a new place, being used on a new platform – so rather than creating an entirely new way of marketing, many of the strategies used offline were simply adapted to online use in a different way.
Take networking, for example. Traditionally, marketers met prospects in person at networking events or even at trade shows, and the ROI of trade shows today is higher than almost any other marketing tactic. Now, with online channels, such as Facebook and Twitter, businesses use this tactic in a next level channel marketing strategy, which was developed to accommodate these platforms. So, it’s not as if the strategies changed, but simply changes made to accommodate the platforms and optimize the performance on these platforms. The good news is there’s still room for both, and networking is just as popular as it’s ever been.
People are more disconnected than ever:
Another good reason that networking and offline marketing still work so effectively is that people, despite, being so easily connected through things like social media, email, and the internet are actually feeling more disconnected than ever. The need for human connection is one of the keys for human survival, so it’s only natural that people feel disconnected when they’re not able to meet in person, and it seems as though nobody knows how to communicate face-to-face anymore. So, if you’re looking to build relationships, as you should when you’re running a business, then connecting with people face-to-face and offline is really going to make such a big difference to your business.
You’ll stand out far easier:
When you do things differently and take a different approach, it’s natural that you’re going to stand out. When it comes to marketing, things are no different, and with everyone else focusing on online marketing, some offline marketing will help you stand out. You’re automatically going to stand out and get noticed quicker by potential clients who you could work with.
This certainly doesn’t mean that there’s no room for online marketing or that you shouldn’t use online marketing. In fact, combining online and offline marketing strategies into a seamless combination, where each reinforces the message of the other, is a great tactic. But, at the end of the day, when you purposely go against the norm, which is currently online marketing, you are going to stand out and that’s going to make life easier; if you’re standing out for the right reasons.
We certainly hope that this post has been useful for you in showing you some of the good reasons why offline marketing is far from dead and why you should be using it in your business.
Of course, this is not to say that you should only be using offline marketing – there’s very much still a place for online marketing, and it should be used as long as you’re using it in a way that works for you, feels good, and is able to bring in results for your business and you’re not spending all day on social media posting to people who have no interest in what you offer.
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Hausman and Associates, the publisher of MKT Maven, is a full-service marketing agency operating at the intersection of marketing and digital media. Check out our full range of services.
