Supporting your Traditional Campaigns with a Strong Online Presence
The hype around digital marketing is unavoidable. With any number of voices professing their latest innovation to be the way forward, the path to digital marketing success can be a hard one to navigate.
At the same time, for many businesses, traditional marketing is still working. For many, newspapers, radio, trade shows etc. are still the corner stones of their marketing mix. However, brands that shun the digital sphere, and still depend solely on these old reliables, are missing out on a whole world of opportunity. Has your business made a solid commitment to maximising its online presence, and if not, can it afford not to any longer?
Almost any successful marketing plan will involve a mix of traditional and digital marketing. In this article we will discuss the importance of supporting your traditional efforts with a robust digital presence.
Missed Opportunities
Imagine your business is “brand X widgets,” and you are exhibiting at a trade show. You meet a prospective client, who is very impressed. From never having considered widgets, they are now almost ready to buy. When your prospect gets home, he sits down to write you an email. Without your information to hand, he searches for “widgets” on Google. Scrolling the page, he can’t find any reference to your company. His brief frustration is replaced with renewed curiosity when he clicks onto the website of “brand Y widgets.”
Your former prospect is finding brand Y’s website brilliant. It is full of information about how these widgets can benefit his life. Furthermore, brand Y have a blog full of educational material. The prospect reads about how he can integrate widgets into the rest of his life, learns different ways of using widgets etc. He clicks through to their Facebook page, where he is entertained, as well as noticing a whole host of good reviews. Before he knows it, his credit card is out, and he is ordering a brand Y widget. A week later, his purchase arrives in the post. By now, he can’t quite remember how he even found out about widgets in the first place.
It is important to reflect that before John met you, he had never even considered buying a widget. Not only have you lost a sale for yourself, but you have generated one for your competitor. With drastic changes in consumer buying habits in recent years, this situation is all too common.
Google = Consumer Power
Google has given power back to the consumer. We no longer need interruption based advertising to inform us of the products that fulfil our needs. We are happy in the knowledge that, if and when we have a need, there is a world of information at our fingertips. If you find that your traditional marketing effort are falling somewhat flat, ask yourself, does my online presence reflect my standing in the market?
Content is King Quality Content is King
When competing for online positioning, quality content is king. Blogs, social media, images, video, white papers, e-books; they are all great ways of bulking up your online presence. As well as quantity, quality is important. Put yourself in the prospective customer’s shoes. Your job is to convince them that what you’re selling is worth more than the money in their pocket. Two major barriers to purchasing decisions are a lack of knowledge of the area, and a lack of trust in the seller.
Testimonials and social activity can give you credibility, as people are naturally inclined to go along with the consensus. Educational blogs and white papers do the same, with the added bonus of teaching the prospect about what they need to consider before making the purchasing decision. For more information on the essential elements of a content marketing plan, read our blog HERE.
Right now, there is empty space in the online world waiting to be occupied by your brand. Are you doing everything you can to claim it? If not, the time to get a strategy in place is today. With years of experience and specialist expertise in the digital space, IMS can help.
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