Jan
4
Not All Marketing Is Digital Marketing
We probably shouldn’t be saying this. It needs to be said, though, that as digital as our world gets, as Internet-addicted as we all come to be, as viral as marketing becomes, there’s still a place in this world for analog stuff. Not all marketing is digital marketing.
Don’t get us wrong. It’s probably fair to say that most marketing is digital marketing. Moreover, there are plenty of old-fashioned marketing techniques that just don’t work anymore. We’re not saying that billboard ads, newspaper placements, and radio jingles are always a waste of money, but they’re certainly a poor investment for most brands, especially smaller businesses. These antiquated formats are getting more expensive but less effective; that’s not the kind of margin you want to see.
With that said, it’s important to us that our readers and clients take advantage of all the marketing tools available to them. Start with our content marketing checklist, but also make sure to augment it with a few traditional strategies and tools—like the following:
- Face-to-face networking. If your aim is to form meaningful connections and build trust with potential clients or partners, content marketing can go a long way. There’s still something to be said for face-to-face communication, though. Go to conventions in your city. Spend some time in nice restaurant bars and lounges. Talk up your business, and focus on forming value-adding relationships with other professionals. Always have business cards on hand to pass around; old-fashioned though they may seem, they still work!
- Take advantage of your receipts. Do your business receipts encourage customers to visit your Facebook page, or leave you positive reviews on Yelp? Perhaps they should. People really do look at their receipts, and while this won’t be as effective as including links on e-mailed invoices, why waste that paper real estate?
- Press releases. Yes, the press release is sometimes used as an SEO tool, and can also generate Google News traction—so you might say that this counts as digital. Press releases can also be great for drawing the attention of local papers, though, and may be a more cost-effective way to get your name out there—online and in print—than taking out paid ad space.
- Word of mouth. Yes, online word of mouth is important—it’s a big part of content marketing, actually—but plenty of word of mouth goes on offline, too. The best way to generate it? Unflashy though this may be, the best advice we can give is simply to focus on providing value-adding products and superior service.
Again, you don’t want to drop your content marketing for any of these strategies—but neither do you want to ignore them altogether.
