10 Digital and Traditional Marketing Strategies That Produce Proven Returns

Because there are constantly new marketing ideas and channels to explore, it’s best to always be testing. At the same time, it’s vital to continue using digital and traditional marketing practices that deliver proven results.

These strategies and tactics help drive revenue growth that justifies your budget for marketing experimentation. This post outlines 10 digital and traditional marketing practices that have proven to be effective over time.

Long gone are the days when forward-looking marketers had to “prove” the value of social media to the C suite. Organic social media has proven over the past decade-plus to be one of the most effective channels in the marketing mix.

It allows you to reach a large audience of potential customers for relatively little cost. You can use social media to efficiently promote your brand, product, or service and drive traffic to your website or store.

There are a few key points to keep in mind when using social media for marketing. First, obviously, you need to be active on the platforms that your target market is using. In B2B social media, LinkedIn is clearly the top platform though there is a battle for which network is #2.

The B2C world is more wide open. Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are no-brainers, but you may also need to be active on platforms like Snapchat and TikTok, despite the risks.

Second, create content that is interesting and engaging. Focus on providing value to your audience, and go lightly on self-promotion.

Third, be active and responsive. It’s important to post regularly and respond to comments and questions from your followers. People will forget about you and your business if you are not active.

Finally, track your results to see what is working and what is not. Without data, it will be challenging to improve your social media marketing strategy.

Content marketing is all about creating and sharing high-quality content that is relevant and helpful to your target market. This can be in the form of blog posts, articles, infographics, videos, or even podcasts. The key is to create content that is interesting and engaging.

When using content marketing, it’s important to have a documented strategy and to be consistent. You need to post regularly and update your website or blog regularly. It’s also crucial to promote your content on social media and other channels.

Content marketing takes time to produce results. It’s like planting an apple tree; you won’t see much at first, but with consistent posting, it will bear great fruit over time.

Though it’s old-school at this point, email marketing remains one of the most effective marketing strategies you can use. It allows you to reach a large, highly relevant audience with moderate effort and minimal expense. You can use email marketing to promote your products or services, build relationships with customers, or simply keep them updated on what’s new with your business.

There are a few elements it’s critical to keep in mind when doing email marketing:

If you’re not already using email marketing, now is the time to start building your opt-in list and planning your strategy. It’s a highly effective way to reach your target audience and promote your business.

Organic search is typically one the top two sources of traffic for B2B websites, accounting for anywhere from 30% to 80% of all visits. That makes search engine optimization (SEO) one of the most essential marketing strategies to implement.

On-site or on-page SEO tactics include optimizing your title tags, meta descriptions, and header tags, as well as creating quality content, and improving your website’s user experience. Offsite efforts primarily involve link-building and link-earning through directories, public relations, social media, and competitive research.

Like content marketing, SEO is a long-term strategy, one you should start working on immediately once your website is updated.

One essential element of SEO is conducting keyword research to find out what keywords you should be targeting on your website. Once you have a list of keywords, you can use them to help develop your website content, titles, and meta tags.

If you’re not sure how to do SEO yourself, there are plenty of guides and tutorials online that can help you get started, or you can hire an SEO specialist to help you out.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video must be worth millions. Explainer Video Production is an extremely powerful marketing tool to help your customers and prospects understand exactly how your products and services work to help them solve their problems. They are engaging and informative, and can help promote your products or services in a way that is difficult to do with text or images alone.

When creating videos, it’s essential to keep videos short (under two minutes) and to the point. You also want to ensure that they are visually appealing and contain relevant information to your target audience.

You can create many different types of videos, such as product demonstrations, customer testimonials, how-to guides, company culture videos, brand awareness videos, and more. No matter what type of video you create, ensure it is high-quality and reflects well on your brand.

If you’re unsure of where to start, a professional video production company can help you create high-quality videos for your business. Alternatively, you can create videos yourself with a smartphone or DSLR camera, then polish them using video editing tools.

If content marketing is like planting apple trees, paid advertising is more like growing tomato plants: the results happen quickly, but you have to keep planting (investing).

Paid ads are a great way to get your brand in front of a lot of potential customers quickly. You can use paid advertising on social media, search engines, and industry websites. Paid advertising can be a great way to reach new customers and grow your business.

When using paid advertising, it’s essential to consider your goals. It only makes sense to pay for traffic if you are driving website visitors to take a specific action, such as downloading an ebook, registering for a webinar, or signing up for a free trial. Establishing your goals can help you choose the right platform and create an effective ad campaign to reach your target audience.

If you’re looking for immediate results, paid advertising is a great option. You can see a return on your investment (ROI) quickly and adjust your campaigns accordingly to get the best results possible.

Public relations (PR) is about building relationships with the media and other influencers to get them to write, talk, and post about your brand.

PR tactics include creating press releases, organizing media events, conducting interviews, and doing media outreach. Effective, professional PR can be a great way to generate buzz around your brand and reach new customers.

If you’re unsure how to get started with public relations, PR firms can help. Alternatively, you can also hire a freelance publicist to help you with your PR efforts.

Influencer marketing involves working with industry influencers to promote your brand. Influencers are people with a large following (or in specific, narrow industry segments, a small but highly engaged following) on social media or other online platforms.

They can help you reach a new audience and promote your products or services in a way that is authentic and engaging. When done correctly, influencer marketing can be a great way to grow your business.

There are many ways to work with influencers, such as sponsoring their content, collaborating on projects, or providing free products or services. Understand the differences between how B2C and B2C influencer marketing work, and do your homework to make sure you select the right influencers for your brand.

Though digital marketing tactics now dominate attention and budgets, don’t dismiss the potential impacts of traditional marketing. Traditional marketing includes tactics like print advertising, TV commercials, direct (postal) mail, billboards (including modern digital billboards), airport concourse signage, and radio ads. Although traditional marketing is not as popular as once, it can still be a great way to reach new customers.

When using traditional marketing, it’s essential to consider your target audience. Where do they consume media? What type of messaging will resonate with them? Are they overexposed to digital advertising (so that more traditional channels may stand out)? Once you know the answers to these questions, you can create an effective campaign to reach your target audience.

While many traditional marketing channels may not be as popular as they once were, they can still be a great way to reach new customers and grow your business. And it’s no longer true that traditional channels are less measurable than digital; using special dedicated phone numbers for TV or radio ads, and QR codes for print, direct mail, and signage, brings digital-level measurability to those traditional platforms.

Data-driven marketing isn’t really a separate channel, since all of the tactics above are driven by data to some degree. Nevertheless, the term is used to describe tactics that rely on data to make decisions—such as AI chatbots.

With data-driven marketing, you can track your marketing campaigns and see what’s working and what’s not. This information can then be used to improve your marketing efforts.

Data-driven marketing is a great way to optimize your marketing campaigns and get the best results possible. It’s essential, however, not to rely solely on data. Data, after all, can only tell you what’s worked in the past. An overreliance on data would eventually make your marketing formulaic, repetitive, and devoid of fresh new ideas.

In conclusion, there are many different marketing strategies that can help grow your business. The best strategies for your brand will depend on your goals and target audience. Try a mix of established digital, old-school offline, and new tactics and see what works best for you. Measure the results of your campaigns so you can continue to improve your marketing efforts over time. And never stop experimenting.