REPOST: Tradigital Marketing: How to integrate traditional and digital marketing for maximum results

In this article from The Business Journals, John Garcia discusses tradigital marketing--the integration of traditional and digital marketing strategies--as the most effective way to reach target audience, score high conversion rates, and make the most sales.

Image provided by ThinkStock (Oleksiy Mark) Image Source: bizjournals.com

There is a paradigm shift regarding the way people consume media.

Media that includes newspapers, television, magazines, radio, direct mail and the Internet are now the conversation starters, and digital is the new destination. People want to know where to go online to either get the rest of the information, sign-up for, or download the offer.

In other words, it is not "traditional" vs. "digital," its "tra-digital" that will garner the best results.

For starters, there are far too many "digital" ad agencies that want to tell you that traditional media is dead — that no one reads the paper or listens to radio anymore. They want to take your ad dollars and put all of them in search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), and a brand new website.

While it may seem like good advice, this is not a good strategy. The truth is traditional media is not dead, but its role has changed dramatically.

For one thing, a digital agency only knows digital and therefore only recommends digital solutions. Even so-called “full-service agencies” are often guilty of separating traditional and digital marketing strategies, doing a disservice to their clients.

A quick case in point is Ironhorse Country Club. The club came to our agency after years of advertising a discounted-fees ad in the local newspaper (“bring in the coupon or call to schedule a round”). The club’s goal was to add a minimum of 25 new members in Q4 2012. We reallocated its budget, and for the same amount of money that they were spending in print, we created two 15-second commercials and ran them locally during two televised golf tournaments, The Fed-Ex Cup and The Ryder Cup.

The results were 92 new memberships — A 300 percent increase. All we did was use a media vehicle that best reached the club’s target audience with a simple call to action: “Visit Ironhorse Membership dot com to schedule a free membership preview round."

This TV campaign generated more traffic to the landing page than any SEO, SEM or other digital campaign could ever have in such a short period of time. The landing page made it easy for the prospect to continue down the sales funnel, and the excellent service by the advertiser closed the deal.

The takeaway: A tradigital strategy that is highly targeted, using a well-crafted ad, and directing its audience online will deliver the highest conversion rate because it mirrors the mindset of the advertiser’s audience.

Next month we’ll discuss the five basic steps to a successful tradigital marketing campaign.


Mitch Berman is a pioneer in the creation of innovative digital consumer and business-to-business products and services based on the principles of influence, sharing, and reward.  Follow this Twitter page to keep abreast of the latest marketing updates.