In today’s marketing landscape people too often distinguish between traditional and digital marketing. However, every business, individual on LinkedIn, or social network user is involved in marketing something—be it their business, themselves, or even their pets. and unless they’re doing it digitally at best they’re leaving money on the table, and at worst, they’re slowly losing their grip on their industry. Despite the digital dominance of the last 30 years, this distinction between “traditional” and “digital” marketing persists. I argue that the pervasive digital presence in our lives means there’s no longer a clear divide —every form of marketing now contains a digital component.
Business Cards
Consider this: The most basic non-electronic item most of us carry — a business card — has a digital element. An email address on that card links to our digital identity. Add web addresses, social media handles, LinkedIn URLs, and suddenly, this simple card becomes a data-rich tool for passive marketing. Even a scrap of paper with an email address can be tracked, added to a CRM, and used to guide prospects through a sales funnel.
All of the following “traditional” markeging tactics now typicall feature digital components:
- Billboards
- Business Cards
- Radio and TV Ads
- Direct Mail
- Garments
- Location Signage
- (Literal) Graffiti
Yes, even a sticker illegally plastered on the back of a street sign has a measurable digital presence if it contains a hashtag. While I’m not suggesting you should take this tack, it works — and you can prove it with analytics.
Scenario 1:
You’re on a flight, seated next to a business professional. After exchanging pleasantries, you hand them your business card. If this card includes a specific URL with tracking tags, you can determine if the person visited your site because of that card. This quantifiable interaction can then be analyzed to show ROI, build projection models, and turn casual conversations into potential leads.
Scenario 2:
You’re driving on the highway to a baseball game downtown. You see a sign for a new brewery on the right-hand side of the road. The sign features an @ symbol and the brewery’s social handle. You google it leading to rich results that display where the brewery is located, what kinds of beers they make, their hours, links to their social properties, and reviews of their products. The brewery knows that you were served an impression based on the search for their social handle, and if that led to you clicking on maps directions, their website, etc. Their marketing strategist uses their analyst’s data to show ownership the importance of the connection between physical signage and technical SEO. They get more specific with the descriptions placed in their schema markup, and next month their impressions and sales go up.
Scenario 3:
You’re cycling down a trendy street in your city on your way to a restaurant to meet some friends. You spot a sticker affixed to the top of a bike rack with a hashtag beneath a band logo. You type the hashtag into Instagram and see that the band is on tour, playing nearby, and a link to purchase tickets is available. You buy two tickets, and the band can see that you got to the purchase step in this process because of the sticker. Their record label prints more stickers with hashtags specific to an upcoming tour as well as t-shirts that feature simple, measurable digital components, e.g. hashtags and @ handles.
By not viewing traditional marketing through a digital lens, we do a disservice to ourselves and our clients. Reframing our marketing efforts to start from a digital standpoint, with a focus on measurement, creates a more integrated and holistic approach to all our promotional endeavors.
So how do you create a holistic marketing strategy with a focus on results like the above?
- Develop a solid marketing strategy with a focus on creating a digital trail for attribution
- Ensure all collateral material will contain a reasonable digital call to action — at the very least a URL, and/or email address
- Create standards for digital attribution — this means an appropriate use of UTM parameters and a process for deployment
- Make analytics a priority — give all of your media and materials the benefit of trackable attribution by ensuring you can track usage digitally. Yes, even your business cards when possible.
- Educate and evangelize the process to ALL of your employees — show them the value of how they can track their own leads more effectively and improve process
If you need more help working out how to perfect this process, feel free to contact me.