To attract new customers and retain current customers, savvy marketing is key. The trick with marketing, though, is understanding how best to spend your marketing budget to provide the best bang for your buck. One major choice you’ll face when thinking through marketing is whether you should invest in traditional marketing or online marketing. The good news is that as long as you make wise spending choices, this doesn’t have to be an “either/or” situation.
Once you have acquired customers, and they have been shopping with you for a while, you may want to utilize some traditional marketing since this tends to be more personal than many online marketing methods. For example, a customer who has made a few purchases from your company may be thrilled to receive a personalized coupon in the mail that they can use for their next purchase. This small-batch traditional marketing will help to drive increased brand loyalty and improved word-of-mouth.
Before a customer can provide repeat business, they have to discover your business. For this part of the customer acquisition process, online marketing is key. By using various search engine optimization techniques to improve your business’s search rankings, you can obtain more views that help inform people of your business. Then, with a good website and a good product, you’ll be able to convert those views into tangible customers.
One of the great things about online marketing is that you can select how obtrusive it is for a given customer. Therefore, if you have a customer that you’re trying to reconnect with, you can utilize online marketing to inform a former customer about a current promotion you have while still giving them an easy out so that they don’t feel cornered. This provides the right balance between pushy and laid-back which can be hard for most forms of traditional marketing to achieve.
If you want to connect with potential customers in your area, then traditional marketing may be your best option. For example, you can send out postcards to select zip codes in your area to advertise your business to people who are within a short walk or drive of your location. This allows you to make a quick personal connection to drive a higher conversion rate.
The main takeaway from this article should be that both traditional and online marketing methods have their place. While you can choose to utilize only one or the other, using both together will always provide the best return for your investment. Thus, it’s important to do your research and consult with other local businesses before you decide on the best strategy moving forward.
You must be logged in to post a comment.