Do we need to use both traditional and digital marketing?
Whether you are an entrepreneur, an artisan, a blogger, a restaurant, a small or medium-sized business of any kind who sells some products both online and offline, you will have to use the best marketing skills you have, to make your customers satisfied and happy, to get the brand attention; to create good brand relationship with your customers and to create a brand image you would like to have.
Everyone today knows the importance of your marketing effort for the success of your business. Communication is the key factor for everything; we have to communicate the value and purpose of our company and our products towards the market and the customers.
The practice of marketing itself has been known for millennia. However, what we used to do, and what used to be successful in marketing approaches has drastically changed. The classic, traditional approach to marketing and the term ‘marketing’ itself first appeared in dictionaries in the sixteenth century, where it referred just to the process of buying and selling at a market. At that time and centuries later, we didn’t know anything about technology, social networks and digital marketing in general. Today, however, with the rise of technology and globalization, the contemporary approach to marketing has changed even more.
Everyone, but everyone is talking just and only about online, digital marketing and efforts you take on the digital identity of your business. Which is fairly okay, and with nearly half the world’s population wired to the internet, the power of your digital marketing is definitely the basis for your business’s success.
But everyone stopped talking about the importance of traditional marketing? What happens with traditional marketing and brand activations such as sales promotions and brand experiences that create your company’s message offline? Is it that irrelevant if your online presence is strong? Is it irrelevant? Please, think twice! I will.
Are we starting to forget how important traditional marketing can be for our businesses? Are we really thinking that only digital marketing can be enough for us to be successful and for us to give our customers great experience? OR do we at least have to give ourselves some time to think about our offline approaches in stores? Yes, yes, yes and yes. We should definitely think more about the benefits of traditional marketing in its base core.
So, to conclude something in advance. How we use digital and traditional marketing, and in which proportions, definitely depends on the industry we are in.
It also definitely depends on where our customers are; what media they use; how they use their free time; how they make decisions, and where can we reach them. Those things we should never forget about. However, here are some traditional marketing approaches you should definitely start thinking of using. If of course those suit your business and your customers.
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If you took care of your online visibility, that’s perfect. However, those efforts and messages you share should be consistent and used offline in traditional marketing as well. We don’t talk here about traditional advertising on TV, radio and in a newspaper. We don’t talk about PR or sponsorship either. All those approaches to traditional marketing can definitely help build awareness, brand image and brand knowledge. However, what we are talking about here are small brand activations such as sales promotion, that shifts the focus of your communications to the main goal of yours: increasing your sales and the number of purchase processes.
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1. Why do we think that sales promotions are important?
First of all, we don’t think that’s important. We know that! And once I tell you why, you will also understand. If your use of sales promotions is wrong, you could create the wrong brand-image, such as having low-quality for low-price, or creating the customers who will buy your product only when it is on sale because they know how often you put it on sale and it just lost the value for them when it’s on regular price. So be careful with sales promotions techniques.
2. What sales promotions do differently for our sales and brand in general?
As we said, traditional advertising and PR will help build brand awareness and brand image, but that doesn’t mean you will get enough sales. There come sales promotions. If used properly, sales promotions are techniques aimed at increasing sales in the short run. Sales promotions techniques aim to generate action (read: “extra purchases) from your customers which is the reason why we also call them “action communications”.
3. What happens in the brains of our customers when sales promotions are used?
When we use sales promotions, what we are trying to create here is a mechanism of immediate behavioral response which doesn’t happen online. The mechanism has its roots in the work of an American psychologist, behaviorist and author Burrhus Frederic Skinner who is regarded as the father of Operant Conditioning which is exactly what we are trying to create when using sales promotions.
Operant conditioning is a learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reward or punishment. This mechanism in sales promotions relies on the “reward” customers get from buying a thing for a lower price or getting something extra. When a customer buys something that is on sale, that behavior in his head is rewarded. When we repeat the promotion, the customer will most likely buy it again. Therefore, that behavior (a purchase) that is rewarded (with a sale) serves to reinforce future behavior (repeated purchase). And once this rewarding feeling is conditioned, it becomes the standard behavioral response and leads to creating a habit of buying that product. Which is really important for your brand. That created habit will help you stand out among other competition on the market. There are so many competitors who sell the same or similar product and with created habit, your customers will most likely buy your product since they are used to it.
What is also important when using the sales promotion is that the incentive we give to the customers (i.e. % of sales) has to be important enough for a consumer to notice a relevant difference for him. Therefore, you should think about the value the customers get from the promotions you create in order to get the best results.
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To sum up this article, the proportions of the usage of both digital and traditional marketing depends on the industry you are in.
However, there are only a few companies in the world that use and can use only digital marketing (or at least 90% of it). The reason is exactly the routine and the habit we were talking about. By using sales promotions and brand activations in the store you create a habit in the customers’ behavior.
And since we really are beings of habits, that should be enough of a reason for you to start thinking about the customer’s experiences in stores. People love good experiences, atmosphere, good conversations with your salespeople and values they get in your store such as sales promotions or extras. Therefore, start thinking about both digital and traditional marketing. You will not regret.
Up until next time my dear readers, thank you for reading!
