Increasing Digital Marketing Leads With Traditional Advertising

8/17/2017

By Ben Allen, Guest Contributor

The world of traditional advertising is on its last legs. People are tired of their favorite TV shows, news, and music being interrupted for a company telling you to buy their product. People are cutting cords, fast-forwarding through commercials, or are willing to pay extra just to not have ads intermingled with what they want.

How do you find a target market and what exactly is it anyway?
Read The Straightforward Guide to Target Markets.

Consumers everywhere are constantly flooded by ads. Billboards, commercials, junk mail, spam in our emails, leaflets — in nearly everything we do on a daily basis, there are ads. We have gotten so used to ads that we unconsciously ignore them, block them out, thus leading to them becoming worthless.

Yet, it is possible to make traditional advertising valuable: by combining it with digital marketing strategies. That way, you can use the ability of getting your business in front of your target market to lead them to more effective marketing.

Knowing Where Your Target Market Is
One major aspect of traditional advertising is knowing where your target market is physically. Having an ad in the wrong place has very little value, but the right ad in the correct spot can bring in tons of potential customers.

Knowing your target market will influence every aspect of your advertising, including what geographical areas to focus on, what format to have your ad in, and when applicable, what content you will create.

For example, let’s say you want to make an ad that targets older men who are farmers by trade. You wouldn’t want to put up billboards in a city, though you’d want it in a rural area. You wouldn’t put an ad in a Cosmopolitan magazine; it would be in a men’s health or farming magazine.

The better you understand your ideal customer, the more likely you’ll choose a location that they will physically be, and in the right mindset to pay attention to your ad.

Leading to Landing Pages
Traditionally, advertisements were meant to convince people to buy a product, more at the bottom of a marketing funnel. Yet, that doesn’t have to be the case, especially if you have a strong digital marketing strategy.

Instead of your ads telling consumer to “Buy Now!” or to dial the number on the screen to make an order, you tell them to find more information on your website. Address and aggravate your target market’s pain points in the ad, and then tell them where they can learn more on how to fix them. Provide an easy-to-remember URL to top-of-the-funnel content that address their concerns, thus entering them into your marketing funnel.

Knowing Strengths and Weaknesses for Each Style
Advertising is a massive industry, with tons of tools people can use to get their business noticed. Every single tool has it’s own strength and weakness that affects how it could lead people to your business.

Print advertising often requires reducing an entire idea to a few words and an image to get your message across. If done well, you can create a simple and easy-to-remember ad that will stick with people. Also, since creating print ads is typically less intensive than video ads, you can make multiple ads for a campaign, all giving the same message but in different ways.

Video and audio ads give you more time to get your message across compared to print ads. Instead of having to reduce your message to a single statement, you have time to actually talk and explain. Ad lengths can vary, typically anywhere from 30 seconds to two minutes, giving you time to cover a topic pretty thoroughly. Plus, video ads have an extra visual element audio ads don’t, meaning you can convey extra meaning and context to your watchers.

The major downside, though, to video and audio ads is that viewers might have a hard time remembering a URL. You have to rely on people’s memories, unlike a print ad, which they can keep and carry with them.

Get Creative
You need to stand out in the cluttered world of ads to get any real benefit from traditional advertising. That means getting creative with your campaigns. Don’t do what is expected with the mediums you are choosing to go with. Stand out, do something new, and get creative.

Wanting to broaden brand awareness with signage around town, like billboards and posters? Think about signage you’ve seen recently and why you remember it outside of everything else. A great billboard or sign presents a strong question or message while providing a momentary entertainment or distraction. A funny catchline or a hard-to-answer question can stick in a person’s mind more than simply saying “Buy our product.”

Online and Social Ads
The world of advertising also includes online ads. As you create an ad campaign for the physical world, don’t forget to consider how digital ads can accomplish similar goals.

One major benefit for online ads versus traditional advertising is that by clicking on the ad, people are directed straight to your landing page. Consumers don’t have to remember a URL, because they are already right there.

A tactic you could utilize is to build brand awareness and prepare consumers with more traditional ads, and then hopefully they will be more open to your business when they see a digital one. Then, instead of having-to-remember a URL, they can jump right to your site via the ad, and journey through your marketing funnel.

A well-made ad can even go viral online. Video is playing a huge part in social media, so if you produce a good video advertisement, push it on social media channels. Pay for ad space on Facebook or Instagram so people can see your video and hopefully share it.

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