With the advent and rise in online marketing, many organisations often forget the proven offline marketing tactics while planning their marketing strategy. Of course, the internet is one of the most efficient ways to reach your target audience, allowing for real-time interaction with your brand and easy to measure metrics. However, offline engagement with customers still has a unique and distinct value. It is no surprise that many organisations have increased their offline marketing budget in recent years. According to the reports produced by Digital Marketing Institute, 9 in 10 marketers expect their digital and offline marketing budget to continue to grow in 2022. Modern-day offline marketing methods such as television, radio, billboards, street flyering, and in-person events have always been the most popular way for brands to reach their target audience and help support their online efforts.Offline marketing uses various offline media (TV, Print, Radio, OOH etc.) to help marketers boost their brand awareness and familiarity with their products and services. It encompasses everything we know today as a more “traditional” marketing method that companies have been using for decades before the popularity of the internet.Offline marketing tactics can be highly effective at supporting and building your organisation’s online brand and are proven to influence online purchasers buying decisions.
Here are five offline marketing tactics that don’t require a big marketing budget and are proven to work:
1. Community Engagement & Networking
Even if it’s virtual, face-to-face interactions and connections continue to play a vital role in networking and offline communication. They offer an incredible opportunity for “personability” to build relationships that digital exchange often “can’t”.
According to Entreprenuer.com, the fact is a section of some target customers don’t spend a lot of time using smartphones and computers. These people still believe in personal contact and a human touch in building relationships. They’re not big believers in interacting and engaging with people on the internet or phones. If we ignore this, the chances are that you are losing a good chunk of your target consumers.
As the world starts to open back up, there’s a real opportunity for an organisation to get involved in their local community setting. Whether supporting a local food delivery initiative, volunteering at the local vaccination centre, sponsoring the local football team, or participating in a community gardening project, community engagements help you secure some good PR opportunities and raise your brand’s visibility.
You can also look at sponsoring a local community project that you feel aligns with your brand; this will elevate your brand value, create recognition, and help develop trust in a company’s brand.
2. Strategic Flyer Distribution or Leaflet Marketing
The marketing strategies that deliver the most significant impact use a combination of online and offline techniques to get to your target audiences and to help interact and acknowledge your brand in real-time. Flyer marketing or leaflet marketing is one of the most popular tangible tools for any business. Marketers believe how critical this tool is at building brand awareness and recognition.
According to a Forbes report on the latest findings in neuroscience research, “paper-based content and ads offer special advantages in connecting with our brains,” particularly regarding brand recall and emotional impact.
You might think flyer marketing can be opaque, cannot be measured accurately or is time-consuming to track. But you’d be wrong. On-street leaflet marketing, direct mail or car hangers, to name a few, can massively increase customer acquisition, skyrocket sales and improve brand awareness.
Uber Eats reached 45 million people with their leaflet delivery campaign and acquired 750 thousand new users. Impressive, right?. Thanks to Oppizi- with its unique tech-powered flyer and leaflet distribution solution, tracking, scaling and optimising your offline campaigns couldn’t be easier!
To compete in the big leagues, your brand has to be noticeable everywhere, not just through online channels — and flyer marketing could be a way to do this.
3. Get creative with Guerilla Marketing campaigns
Guerrilla marketing has witnessed a ton of success in recent years. The term ‘Guerrilla Marketing’ was first coined by Jay Convard Levinson in his famous book ‘Guerrilla Advertising’ back in 1984. Guerrilla marketing focuses on unorthodox strategies that create buzz and make a lasting impression on customers. It also acts as a perfect bridge to bring buyers from offline to online. Unlike other forms of marketing that follow a standard set of rules, guerrilla marketing ideas rely solely on creativity and execution. Since online marketing channels are narrowly structured, offline is the best arena to flex your business’s guerrilla marketing muscle.
The phrase “Guerilla “originates from “guerrilla warfare” — meaning the element of surprise. If a business can adopt a solid guerilla-based approach, it can see a huge ROI and put your business in the spotlight by becoming “viral”. However, of all the offline marketing ideas, Guerilla Marketing requires the most creative approach, originality doesn’t come easily. You need an excellent team to brainstorm with. A few Offline guerrilla marketing ideas can be:
- Use sticker marketing to boost your brand.
- Use chalk for advertising promotions on subways, sidewalks or stations.
- Set up a pop-up shop
- Donating branded bookmarks to your local library.
- Street Marketing (Give away Samples )
A great example of guerrilla marketing is the kitchen roll brand Bounty. They created giant plastic items and placed them around the high street. Items included a spilt coffee and an ice cream that looked like it was melting into the pavement, with a sign next to them saying, “Makes small work of BIG spills.” When it comes to guerrilla marketing, you have a chance to be creative for relatively little cost.
4. Radio/TV Advertising & Billboards, Physical ads
Reach your audience when you have their attention- people watching TV, listening to the radio, looking at a train station ads/billboard or reading a newspaper are usually quite focused on the task at hand. These ads offer your brand the chance to get noticed and give your marketing their full attention. Alternatively, those scrolling through social media or browsing online aren’t as focused as the above.
Large physical ads certainly command more public’s attention and still work well in today’s digital age. It promotes your brand to a much wider audience. It’s not only your target audience who sees them — but you can also tap into a new target audience you never considered before.
Coming to TV ads, we all have our favourites: from something retro, like the famous Coca-Cola ad, or to more modern, like Budweiser’s Puppy Love.
Even though streaming services are top-rated, millions of people still prefer regular TV channels. We know this method promotes your brand to a captive audience and offers the flexibility to select the time of day you want your ads to run. It also ensures your ads are being seen at the right time by the right audience.
With offline brand marketing campaigns. Using catchy jingles for TV or Radio ads, going colourful or bold with out-of-home advertising etc., will make you stand out in the busy market. Offline offers far more options than online, which makes it easier to stand out. A caveat to this- apart from visual pollution that it may seem to a few, these kinds of ads do require a lot of ongoing maintenance if you plan to keep them up and running for a long time — so be prepared.
5. Business Cards
Business cards are still the most popular tangible tools for any business. It’s not just one of the great offline marketing ideas; it’s more or less essential for any business. Business cards allow you to give someone a compact way to get in touch quickly and efficiently —not just with you, but with your business as a whole.
In the digital age, fewer people are relying on business cards. They assume that a business card is more or less redundant where everyone has an online presence. They would be wrong. Many people remember you because of what’s on your business card. It includes details like your website URL, logo, contact numbers and email addresses. As mentioned above, a section of target customers still believes in personal contacts and a human touch in building relationships and don’t really spend much time using smartphones. If you ignore this, then chances are you are losing a good chunk of your market.
If you have skills and time, traditional design and illustration software tools such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign are the industry standards for design software and can offer you the greatest level of flexibility for business card design. For small business owners who have limited time, an online design site may offer customisable business card templates that you can personalise with your logo and information. Get business cards made, and start handing them out wherever you go!
Offline marketing tactics can be highly effective at supporting and building your organisation’s online brand and are proven to influence online purchasers buying decisions.
The traditional B2B ad spending (TV, print, radio and outdoor) have plummeted in the last three years by 10%, and a rebound is on the way. This year, traditional B2B spending will hit $15b, growing 11.2% (US), and traditional expenditure is projected to hit $15.78b by 2023. It is worth noting that with GDPR and other privacy laws, online marketing is becoming even more challenging to track as businesses look for other ways to engage with their potential customers.
By combining both offline and online strategies, you can bring your marketing mix to a full circle — increasing your brand’s visibility and, at the same time, attracting more attention.
Start looking outside the box if your goal is to give your business a real marketing boost this year.
Find out what Oppizi can do for your offline marketing needs today.
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