Marketing in general is a tool that requires extensive knowledge and effort to leverage. It’s essential to master all aspects of this doctrine to successfully grow your brand or business.
In fact, any good web marketing strategy you apply to your online business will help you achieve your goals, as long as it’s well-founded. However, there’s one key factor that many internet entrepreneurs forget when looking to expand their online presence: offline marketing!
In this way, blended marketing combines traditional marketing with digital marketing . The result? A powerful strategy that will undoubtedly grow your business!
The idea of a combined strategy is to leverage the strengths of each to increase your presence in the tangible world. Just like online exposure through search engines, it also increases your reach and exposure offline.
How blended marketing works
Now that you know what blended marketing is , it’s time to understand how this combination works to elevate your advertising strategy to perfection.
In short, you’ll be applying this methodology from the moment you use digital and traditional media to promote your business. But it’s very important to keep in mind that both media must work collaboratively… That means they must be part of the same strategy.
You must connect what you advertise online with what you advertise on traditional platforms . This way, you achieve a dual purpose: Capturing all possible audiences… And wowing people who are susceptible to both.
A good example is using an email marketing campaign alongside a direct mail campaign… to deliver a targeted promotion to a select group of recipients. You might be wondering: can a traditional mail campaign really be effective? Yes! When you support it with a much more comprehensive strategy.
Some email marketing systems offer a service where they’ll also send a direct mailing to customers’ mailboxes. Receiving a tangible good or a letter increases the chances of customer loyalty!
This is just one high-level example of how blended marketing can work for you to ensure a broader reach of your goals from multiple fronts.
Advantages of blended marketing
The benefits of a blended marketing strategy are enormous. Here are some of them:
- You get greater exposure for your business
- You can target the same audience through multiple media
- It allows you to identify the strengths of online and offline marketing strategies
- You will be able to create multiple promotions
- Generate multiple sources to feed your conversion funnel
- You offer your products/services online and offline.
- You present yourself as a solid and stable company
- Blended marketing will also allow you to increase sales.
Disadvantages of blended marketing
- By combining two ways to advertise your business, the financial investment required for blended marketing will be greater.
- It’s difficult to obtain data that allows you to measure campaign performance. If you want to know the results… it will take some time.
How to carry out blended marketing ?
Creating a blended marketing strategy isn’t that difficult if you know your target audience and have identified how to reach them. From there, you can design a multi-pronged marketing strategy to ensure your message is heard.
The first step is to conduct market research to identify :
- Who is your target audience?
- Where do they hang out?
- How to reach them?
- What are your needs?
- How can you meet their needs?
- Will they buy?
The second step is to start designing your blended marketing strategy . This is where the fun begins! You’ll want to be creative and make sure you explore all possible options for getting your message across to the market in both modalities.
A good example is showing TV ads and placing an online banner to reach an audience that only uses one of these. This way, you can reach as many audiences as possible!
Examples of blended marketing
It’s time for you to get some inspiration from the following blended marketing examples:
- Old Spice: Excellent videos were created and distributed on social media, and it was widely advertised on billboards and commercials. As a result, by the time the product was released, blended marketing had already done its work, and thousands of units had been sold.
- H&M: Here’s proof positive that old and new go well together when it comes to integrated marketing. It was an interesting Christmas billboard ad supported by a YouTube short film starring Adrian Brody.
- Cancer Research UK: All the bases for a worthy cause were covered. It even extended to print and television, combining everything with a digital presence. The campaign focused on asking people to donate something to cancer research.
- LinkedIn: You might not have expected it, but this social media giant launched a TV ad campaign under the slogan: ” In It Together .” They used billboard ads and posted videos on social media that attracted the attention of thousands of people.
- ESSC: Easterseals Southern California’s blended marketing campaign successfully leveraged diverse platforms, including social media and outdoor advertising. This is how they achieved the popularity they enjoy today.