Is Digital Marketing the Only Form of Marketing in 2023?

Digital marketing is the keystone of any modern-day marketing campaign. With the emergence of SEO and social media, there’s never been a better time to be in the B2B space online.

As exciting as it may be, digital marketing seems to have taken over as the king from traditional offline marketing efforts. This isn’t a particularly bad or good development, but rather a natural evolution of the craft.

Heck, Biztech.com says:

A whopping 3.92 billion people use social media. The average millennials and Gen Z hop around about seven social media platforms per month.

With numbers like that, it’s easy to dismiss the “old ways” of marketing.

So this leads us to the natural question… is digital marketing the only form of marketing in 2023? That is, is it the only form of marketing worth a hoot in today’s market?

The short answer? No! There’s still plenty of ways you can use offline marketing to generate leads for your business. In fact, using digital marketing and offline marketing in tandem is the best way to maximize lead generation and conversion rates in your prospects.

Here’s a quick video about offline and online lead generation from Patrick Dang:

Quick Takeaways:

• There are still many impactful ways to generate leads offline

• You don’t have to focus your attention on just offline or online generation – they should work in tandem

• While SEO is important for lead generation, physical copies of your content and messaging are another method of gaining attention from prospects

Let’s talk about why you should be using other forms of marketing.

Neglecting offline tactics can cause you to miss part of your target audience

Let’s face it, you can’t easily target every one of your customers with online tactics. Certain people who need your products/services may not spend much of their time using computers.

This is where newspaper ads, direct mail flyers, or industry events can complement your online efforts, reinforcing your brand with local prospects.

You can’t afford to not be reaching out with physical copies of your messaging and information.

This point is particularly dependent on your target audience and various buyer personas. If they make up a young, tech-savvy population that spends much of their time online, then digital efforts are likely to be more effective.

But it’s not likely that all of your buyer personas fall into this category, which is why you need to embrace alternative outreach techniques to target them effectively.

For B2B companies, offline lead generation yields more leads

There’s nothing quite like the experience of having a face-to-face interaction with potential clients. It’s still the best way to convey sincerity and personalized service, which is why offline lead generation is still important.

This is mostly attributed to the level of personalization you can impart when communicating with prospects offline, and we all know that a little marketing personalization goes a long way.

Source: Marketing Charts

In the B2B realm, offline lead generation reigns supreme. One study showed that 76% of B2B lead generation comes from offline sources compared to 18% generated via online methods.

Of course, this particular case is circumstantial, but over three-quarters of leads generated is a figure that simply cannot be ignored.

Here’s some offline marketing ideas for your business to implement alongside your digital marketing efforts:

• Physical mailing lists / flyers

• Cold calls 

• Throwing company events

• Utilizing publication media advertisements

• Company swag giveaways

• Giving tours

• Poster campaigns in your town

Get creative! If done correctly and effectively, any of these suggestions can bring more eyes to your product or service.

Let’s talk about why digital marketing is still important too!

Your target audience is (probably) online a lot

In the United States alone, roughly 223 million (82% of Americans) have at least one, if not more social media accounts. This is driving more and more companies to take advantage of various social media platforms to network across them.

In summary, it’s a digital world. By using social media to place banner ads and links to your website you can generate tons of eyes to your business, not to mention increase your brand’s reputation within the community. An online presence builds credibility with your target audience.

Digital marketing makes it easy to analyze metrics

Measuring success is subjective to each content strategy, and key metrics can be extremely different from each other. Do you want to have more overall clicks than last quarter? What about what happens after the viewer clicks your article – are they converting to a new customer? How many are/aren’t?

These are all just examples. Brainstorm what success in a content marketing campaign looks like to YOU.

Here’s a few metrics to look at when measuring the success of your digital marketing campaign:

Traffic:

Traffic is about pageviews and users. Services like google analytics can give you an accurate read of this data. It also helps you see exactly where your views are coming from.

Conversions:

Views are great, but what happens after the initial click? Is the reader just clicking your ad then exiting the page? Are they sharing it? Are they actually purchasing your product or scheduling your services?

Conversion rate shows how many prospects are becoming customers. This metric is the real shining gem of your content marketing efforts! Converting prospects should be your number one goal with digital marketing.

SEO:

Source: WSI Proven Results

Seeing how your organic search rankings are performing is crucial to a healthy digital marketing strategy. Luckily – there’s some B2B tools designed to help you analyze your key metrics and strategy.

Wrap up

The best marketing strategies expertly combine both online and offline methods to suit their target audiences. It really depends on your audience’s demographics and preferences, as well as the nature of your business, product, or service offering.

Remember that offline brand recognition can lead to online traffic and conversions.

Continue to test a combination of marketing strategies until you find your lead generation sweet spot. Once you discover the perfect brew tailored for your business, build on it and watch as a steady stream of conversions result in a robust bottom line.

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? What luck! Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation.