Is offline marketing dead?

The internet has changed marketing forever, and many people often overlook offline marketing. This train of thought could be hurting your brand. Offline marketing has stood the test of time, and we argue that it is probably more important now in this digital era. With all the information that is pushed in front of us online, it can be hard to be heard over all the noise. That’s where offline marketing comes into play. Does this mean you should only be doing offline marketing? Absolutely not, a carefully crafted campaign that includes both aspects of online and offline can increase your ROI substantially.

Direct Mail Lifespan

Online marketing has a very short lifespan. Think about it, you’re scrolling through your social media feed, and an advert appears in your feed. The chances are you will keep scrolling, and that advert has gone, this is true for most people. A direct mail, however, has a much longer life span. Direct mail is one of the cornerstones of offline marketing for a good reason. It works! On average direct mail is kept in the home for around 17 days, and over 90% of all direct mail is opened. Direct mail doesn't have to be a leaflet that offers a discount. It can drive people to websites (use QR codes to make this as easy as possible), be an offline shop in the form of a brochure, drive home a brand message in the form of a roll fold or even shock and awe to leave a lasting impression with spring-loaded boxes that pop when opened.

Buyer Decision Process

All customers go through a buyer decision process. This is the process of choosing whether to buy a product or not. This can be harder when shopping online as the customer is unable to touch and feel the item they are considering purchasing. Offline marketing can help with this by making the customers go through the buyer decision process at home. By sending a free sample to a customer, they can go through this process, couple that with a tremendous eye-catching flyer with brilliant copy, you have yourself a new customer. Plus 56% of people who still shop instore do so because they like to touch and feel the product. A free sample again lets them do this in the comfort of their own home.

Offline and Online Working Together

It sounds counter-intuitive, but an offline marketing campaign can help drive significant traffic to your website. Adverts in magazines can drive up to 30% of readers to websites. Printed adverts are also great for targeted marketing. If you match the magazine to your customers base that’s a sure-fire way of driving traffic to your website. Another way of merging the offline and online worlds is programmatic mail.

Programmatic mail allows you to convert those abandoned baskets that would otherwise slip through your fingers. 70% of all eCommerce baskets are abandoned and costs the retail sector BILLIONS in lost revenue. Programmatic mail can help this by tracking your customers around your site. Then at a predetermined point (when the customer abandons the basket), the software sends a fully customisable piece of direct mail that will land on the customers’ doorstep within 48 hours. The flyer can have discounts on the products the customer abandoned, similar products, in fact, it can have anything you wish to nudge your customer back to the site and complete the transaction. Some case studies have shown a 60% return rate to the website, and another had an 18% conversion rate. Find out more HERE

7 is the magic number

The average person will only purchase from a brand after seeing that particular brands message at least seven times, according to the Entrepreneur. This number can, of course, vary from customer to customer, but the overall message is communication. Communicating with customers is the key to generating leads. Pairing an online campaign alongside an offline marketing campaign is the key to getting your brand in front of customers eyes.

Offline Marketing and GDPR

Now that the GDPR act has been enforced for a while and everybody has come to terms with the restrictions the law imposes. The DMA states that you don’t need explicit consent to send direct mails to households. As long as there is a legitimate interest, you are good to go. Don’t forget that 51% of emails that are deleted within 2 seconds compare that to what we said earlier in this post that offline marketing materials have a life span of 17 days some even reaching 38 days you can see how powerful offline marketing can be to your brand. The best way to stay GDPR compliant and still send direct mail is to use partially addressed mail. This takes out the personal data. By addressing the direct mail to say:

Chocolate Lover

12 Fake Street

Notown

NO1 9SE

means that you can still be hitting your ideal demographic whilst ensuring your campaign is 100% GDPR compliant. The cost of sending a partially addressed campaign can be very cost-effective with 88% of people either opening, filing or saving for later a piece of partially addressed mail.

Conclusion

Using offline marketing techniques should not be overlooked and doing so could be hurting your brand. Large and small companies alike should all have an element of offline marketing to ensure you reach the maximum amount of people possible within your demographic. There are a variety of ways you can utilise offline marketing from door drops to billboards, see our other blog posts to see the different avenues of offline marketing there are. But as you can see from the above, utilising these offline marketing strategies will significantly help you improve your digital campaigns and overall your sales.

Contact PSE to see how we can help improve your ROI on your next campaign.