Face-to-face connections are still a valuable form of networking and will create awareness about you and your firm in an instant. It can help drive traffic to your website when your new connections are inspired to learn more about you and your firm. Being able to put a face to the name can help create a deeper sense of brand loyalty among potential clients. There are many ways to network. Consciously create opportunities and do not forget the importance of a good, old fashioned handshake.
• Print Advertising
Running print advertisements is another method for getting in front of more potential customers. However, it is significantly more difficult to track the return on investment for print advertising than it is for online ads and they can often be more expensive to run, so consider your options carefully. Print advertisements are best positioned in highly targeted publications where you can guarantee members of your target audience will see your ad.
Here are a few tips on how you could integrate digital into your current print marketing strategies:
• QR Codes
If possible, include a URL or a QR code in print advertisements to send visitors to online platforms. This will help you track these campaigns better. QR codes are brilliant ways of building bridges between your printed marketing and owned media in the online space. With people scanning the codes or entering the URLs on their smartphones at the same time they are consuming the printed material, not only can you drive traffic to your online campaigns but you can track cross-pollination and harvest some interesting data on your users, such as when and where they are interacting with your printed material. QR codes in particular allow you to get really creative as well and can be printed onto practically anything. Social prompts are ever-present in the corner of print advertisements.
• Hash-tagged Words
Some print campaigns are even entirely digital in focus, featuring hash-tagged words. #Hashtags seem to be a weird concept, but it has actually taken off. Hashtags are topical tags that anyone can use in their digital conversations. Firms like to encourage their own hashtags so they can find out who is talking about them online. Include a hashtag wherever you mention your social media accounts, print material like flyers, brochures, newspaper advertising, or even when hosting events!
• Custom URL’s
Fifty percent of your marketing cannot be tracked, unless you are using custom URLs on your offline advertising. To track offline campaigns just like online marketing, you can create custom web pages, or even full websites, dedicated to your campaign. Depending on the creativity of the campaign, you will get a certain percentage of people that see your offline ad and go to your URL customised for that page.
You should not need to choose between offline and online tools as they complement, and do not substitute, one another.
For more information contact Emmerentia Fick at emmerentia@succeedgroup.co.za
This article is a general information sheet and should not be used or relied on as professional advice. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omissions nor for any loss or damage arising from reliance upon any information herein.