It’s no secret that many traditional marketing channels no longer work the way they used to. The Internet Revolution has changed forever the way consumers access news and entertainment, communicate with one another, and how they receive and process information about products and services.

YouTube and streaming digital downloads have largely replaced traditional television viewing, text messaging and social media now dominate personal communication, and the variety of readily available online information sources have helped push newspaper readership down to record low numbers. Even basic word of mouth advertising, a staple for many local businesses, has been transformed by business review sites and forums.

Traditional marketing is no longer effective simply because the market for the media that carried traditional marketing messages is no longer there. That being said, why would anybody in their right mind continue to invest in traditional marketing?

Traditional Marketing Channels Reinforce Your Digital Strategy

• Despite the fact that organic SEO and pay-per-click marketing are designed to reach consumers with high buying intent, the majority of all purchases are made only after a minimum number of marketing “touches” (some experts say seven) or outreaches are made.
• To move a prospect from awareness and interest to desire and taking action usually requires a series of mutually supporting messages.

However many digital marketing channels you employ, reading and hearing about your product across traditional marketing media will help reinforce your digital marketing message and strengthen your brand’s case with your prospect. Traditional marketing helps your business appear more legitimate, demonstrating that yours is a real company – existing in the real brick and mortar world as well as the digital world.

Certain Audiences May be More Easily Reached with Traditional Marketing
Some of your best prospects may be more effectively reached through traditional marketing channels. Older prospects or prospects living in smaller, more rural locales may simply be more receptive to messages delivered through the more familiar hometown newspaper and local radio than with this newfangled “Internet thing.”

While Internet usage is fairly well established across all demographic groups and geographic areas, not everyone is equally comfortable with “letting their mouse do the walking,” and will be easier to reach with a traditional marketing campaign.

If Traditional Marketing is Working, Reinforce Your Success with Digital Marketing
As long as your traditional marketing efforts are bringing in a decent number of quality leads at an affordable cost, by all means keep on doing what you’re doing. If this is the case, your next step would be to add digital marketing channels as your budget permits, allowing you to reach a new audience of prospective customers that a traditional-only approach is missing.

Just as certain prospects are easier to reach through traditional channels, others will be easier to target with digital marketing, and an integrated approach will improve your overall sales opportunities. As long as your marketing is effectively driving sales and you have attribution modeling in place to determine which marketing channel is resulting in the highest ROI there should be no reason to assert a marketing channel bias. If the results show that the greatest ROI is coming from your digital channels than you will be making recommendations to allocate a greater budget to those channels.

Tips for Effectively Integrating Traditional and Digital Marketing
1. Use direct mail to deliver prospects to a unique landing page that addresses their needs and presents your company as the problem solver.

2. Move your traditional public relations campaigns online. This once time-consuming chore can be more effectively developed and managed online, with greatly enhanced results.

3. Add one or two new digital channels at a time. Assuming you already have a mobile-optimized website and company blog, add one or two social media networks appropriate to your niche and customer base. Be sure to create and optimize a Google+ (Google My Business) profile – if you’re interested in ranking for local search. After that, start gathering as many online business reviews as possible, and market your positive reviews across your various web properties such as your website and social media networks.