What is it that all great marketing campaigns share in common? Is it an element of creativity that stops to make you look twice? Perhaps a water-tight strategy could be what separates the best from the rest. Maybe implementing the most cost-effective measures is the route to success. The truth is that a great marketing campaign prospers across each of these fields.
However, knowing ‘what’ engenders success isn’t always enough. Instead, we must interrogate ‘how’ we augment each limb of our campaign – or in the case of today’s article – ‘where.’ In other words, what does offline marketing allow us to achieve that we cannot do digitally?
Digital marketing is the only way to target and track a campaign… right?
Wrong.
In fact, there are a number of techniques that the digitally-magnetised minds of the 21st century often assume to be exclusive to the virtual world – techniques that often reap better rewards when utilised in an offline context.
It goes without saying that targeting is a must for modern marketing. However, those new to offline marketing are often surprised at how in-depth their mail campaign targeting is. On top of implementing sophisticated targeting techniques similar to those you might find within digital marketing, an offline campaign can also be closely tracked to help develop your strategy for future marketing.
So, if we can target and track our offline campaign, what separates this channel from its digital counterpart?
Tangibility
Many businesses pile thousands, if not millions, of pounds into developing a brand that communicates their values, offering a position in the market, and more. The value of a robustly characterised, distinguishable brand cannot be overestimated. However, with the short moments your business has within the fleeting scroll of a screen or a skipped ad, communicating the brand message that has been so attentively built becomes a very difficult and expensive challenge. However, offline marketing introduces a new sensory channel to do just that. Tangibility.
Without depending on cheesy sales pitches or soporific blocks of text, we can instantly tell the audience exactly where we stand in the market simply by landing in the palm of their hands. Communicating quality is as easy as thickening the weight of your paper stock, while a more playful brand may benefit from unusual shapes or textures. Within seconds, introducing this unique layer of messaging tells a memorable, experiential story.
Extended Attention
Storytelling depends on its audience to pay attention for a message to be absorbed; however, impactful, influential, and compelling stories draw attention innately. Evidence from in-depth studies from JICMAIL shows that offline marketing is a far more effective way to demand such engagement, indicating its uniquely compelling qualities.
In our previous blog, we introduced attention as a valuable metric, citing that assessing the value and length of time spent with an audience can lead us to far more valuable conclusions. Doing so revealed that the ability of offline marketing to retain the attention of an audience for substantially longer than that of digital advertising meant that its audience is far more likely to be led down a memorable, relationship-building path toward an ROI-building response.
Creativity
The well-known urban legend in the world of marketing suggests that the average person will be exposed to up to 10,000 ads each day. While various sources will tell you this is true, and others will laugh at such an astronomical overestimation, the figure itself isn’t particularly important. What matters more is how many of these countless ads actually stand out – you could probably count them on one hand. Here’s where a creative spark can be one of your most valuable assets.
Cutting through the clutter is something that marketers have battled with since the dawn of time – or at least since around 3000 BC when an ancient Egyptian ‘missing person’ sign was also found to promote a local weave store. Unfortunately, nobody has since found a fits-all solution to sticking in the mind of your audience beyond “stand out from the crowd.” Fortunately, offline marketing can help you to do just that.
Departing from the two-dimensional world of digital advertising opens up a range of unique opportunities to be creative with your campaign. The freedom to experiment with scale, dimensions, and weight is just the beginning. Elements of interactivity have seen a number of campaigns take creativity to the next level with mail that transforms into on-brand origami, others that demand action to reveal secret messaging, and others that include toys and puzzles that help to tell the story of a campaign. Try doing that with a Google display ad.
Now, we’re not telling you to abandon your online efforts. In fact, we are massive advocates for multi-channel approaches that help businesses capitalise on a range of techniques. However, offline marketing does present numerous unique chances to make a lasting, memorable – and in the end – profitable impact on your audience. If you’re curious about what this might look like to you, don’t hesitate to contact us.
