What do you think is the best way of increasing traffic to your website? SEO? Pay-per-click? Well, maybe it’s worth considering what you can do offline to boost visitor numbers. Let me explain.
Moshi Monsters is a popular online game for kids, in which they can create and nurture a virtual pet. To grow brand awareness and website traffic, they decided to launch a real world printed magazine – and with great success. Within six months it had become the best selling magazine for kids, and it’s given them a valuable way of communicating with customers outside of their digital realm.
Moshi Monsters is just the latest example of online companies opening offline channels to grow their brand (there are examples in this Marketing Week article). People engage with content differently offline, and it can give you a way of reaching new customers that might not otherwise find you on the internet.
After all, not everybody spends as much time online as us marketing bods.
Print can act as the trigger to online activity
Despite what you’ll often hear from forthright new media ‘gurus’, print isn’t dead. The fact is that people engage with different types of media in different ways, and a paperless future is a long way off.
I know we quote this stat a lot on this blog (because it’s a juicy one) – but a Pitney Bowes survey found that 73% of people prefer to receive product announcements and offers in the mail, compared to getting them online.
This highlights the fact that print’s physicality makes it harder to dismiss than a flick of the delete key. When done well, brochures and direct mail can act as the trigger to online activity by directing people to your website (preferably with a personalised URL).
Combining media types can increase trust and response
In wake of the phone hacking scandal, a YouGov survey (also reported upon in Marketing Week) found some interesting figures on the levels of trust in different types of media:
- radio – 52% think it’s very or fairly trustworthy
- TV – 47%
- newspapers – 28%
- magazines from brands – 25%
- online magazines and mag apps – 23%
- paid-for printed magazines – 22%
- websites – 21%
- email – 11%
- direct marketing – 8%
- YouTube and website videos – less than 1%
- 31% trust the comments/reviews of other users
- 31% trust the editorial written by professional journalists
As you can tell from these figures, customers are a cynical bunch. They already have low levels of trust in email (thanks spammers!) and websites, so it’s worth considering how you can combine different media types to win them over.
Two avenues to explore are:
1) Customer magazines – People now trust the content in free branded magazines more than commercial ones. This is a reassuring statistic and shows that the ‘content marketing’ trend we’re hearing more about has got momentum and people’s perceptions of branded content are changing.
2) Incorporate customer feedback – In the survey, people said they trust the opinions of other consumers as much as those of experts. This highlights the way in which people are actively looking for user generated reviews and comments to aid their buying decisions. So it’s worth considering how you can incorporate customer feedback by extending campaigns into Facebook and Twitter and by reaching out to bloggers to grow trust, engagement and traffic to your website.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. Award winners BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region
