What type of advertising schedule is best suited for products and services that are consumed regularly at relatively steady rates?

But what do search ads depend on? Take Google Ads, for example. The ads that are featured on a SERP are based on a number of key components: your keywords, your Quality Score, your Ad Rank, and how high your bid is per click.

Unlike display ads, the average CTR for a search ad (across all industries) is 1.91%. Compared to display ads, that’s an increase of over 440%! Search ads are typically more successful than display ads because of one key factor: relevance. They relate directly to whatever the person has searched for, capturing the intent of the potential consumer.

Remarketing is a term that’s thrown about a lot today. Often confused with retargeting, remarketing is a promotional technique that aims to re-engage consumers who have shown an interest in a product or service somewhere on the internet. 

The goal of remarketing is to record the items that users have viewed and interacted with, and then promote that product or service, using market segmentation and targeting, on external channels like news sites, search engines, or social media, for example. Research from Moz showed that remarketing improved their conversion rates by 51%, and increased their average site visit duration by a massive 300%! 

Ultimately, the purpose of remarketing is to drive highly targeted consumers back to your website and towards the point of conversion. And, when done correctly, it really works. 

Native advertising is a form of paid, digital advertising where the ad itself is embedded amongst content and blends in with the design of the page on which it sits. The aim of native advertising is to really look like natural content, and be as non-intrusive as possible, whilst still enticing the consumer. One of the greats of native advertising is Instagram, take a look at this example:

Native ads epitomise the ‘soft sell’, that’s evident in the ad pictured above. It’s relevant to the user and blends in with the design of the platform where it’s located. This ad is almost indistinguishable from a normal post on Instagram, the only clue that indicates that this post is a paid advertisement is the addition of the word ‘sponsored’, featured under the brand name or username, where a user’s location would be (or it would simply be left blank).

Research shows that the average CTR for native ads is between 0.8% and 1%, that’s over 50% higher than the average CTR for standard display ads. A lot of native advertising is based on remarketing, which is one of the reasons why they see more interaction than the likes of display ads: they’re relevant. It’s this level of personalisation that entices your prospective audience and retains your current, loyal consumers. 

Push Notifications 

Push notifications are short messages that are delivered to a user’s device via an app or website. They can be media-rich and also contain a CTA (call-to-action) which aims to prompt the user into making an action like revisiting the app or accessing a particular product, for example.  

Most brands now use push notifications. If you have an app on your mobile phone, chances are that, as soon as you initially enter the app, you are told that the app would like to send you push notifications. Essentially, push notifications are here to stay. But with the huge array of apps flooding the market, it’s important for brands to make their push notifications something special and avoid the dreaded opt-out. This means they must have a great design, offer valuable content, and the messages must be relevant to the user. 

Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing essentially refers to any kind of marketing that doesn't reside online. This means television, radio, print media, direct mail, and referrals. Similar to digital marketing, traditional marketing is broad and each aspect encompasses a number of different and specific features. 

For example, if you include television marketing in your strategy, the methods and intricacies of TV marketing will be entirely different from the likes of, say, print marketing. 

Contrary to what some may think, traditional and digital marketing aren’t mutually exclusive; many brands incorporate both forms of promotion in their strategies in order to broaden their horizons and ensure that they are seen in at least one place.

Source: IPA Touchpoints, Zenith

So let’s take a look at each of the most typical forms of traditional marketing and their benefits.

Print Media

Print media refers to newspapers and magazines. It’s one of the earliest forms of traditional marketing, dating back to the 15th century. In 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, and with that, the production and distribution of news pages en-masse became possible. 

Mass production is the type of print media we’re familiar with. However, if you want to take it back even further, evidence of printing techniques have been recorded as early as 3000 B.C.E, in ancient Mesopotamia, where clay tablets were used to imprint symbols and images that elicited meaning. The same technique was used to create one of the most ancient epic stories known to literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh.

But back to the present day. Print newspapers are seeing a decline in ad revenue, and it’s clear to see why; digital advertising is often cheaper and, with impressive algorithms and analytics available at the click of a button, it also offers a lot more in return, such as an extensive reach and the ability to accurately analyse the effect of your hard-earned cash.

Source: Enders Analysis

That being said, print is most certainly not dead. Many newspapers and magazines are deciding to include digital in their strategies, offering both print media and digital copies of their content. But print alone still has the ability to positively impact your marketing efforts. Research shows that newspaper ads are viewed for 2.5 times longer than the average digital ad. This is because they’re far less in-your-face; people sitting down to read a newspaper or magazine are physically engaging with the product in their hands. 

Furthermore, ads in newspapers and magazines are static, meaning that they don’t move around the page and vie for attention - this gives the consumer the power to decide whether or not they wish to engage with this ad. 

General Manager for Ebiquity Paris, Nathalie Taboch, has said that people don’t perceive ‘tangible ads (TV, print or poster campaigns) the same way as digital ones’. Digital ads offer instant, snackable content whereas tangible ads call on the imagination thus creating a deeper imprint in the reader’s memory.

Broadcast 

Broadcast marketing is the process of utilising television and radio (two well-known classics) for promotion in your marketing strategy in order to increase viewers and listeners. Whilst no one can deny the proliferation of digital marketing, TV, and radio built the foundations of promotion as we know it today, and they’re still a fundamental aspect of many marketing strategies. 

That’s partly because television and radio do not exist separately from the online world - sure, people still use regular television sets and radios still reside in kitchens or cars, for example, but they’re also online. Recent studies have shown that that 80% of people still watch programs on a traditional TV set, 35% watch on a laptop, and 29% on a tablet, but that these figures vary by demographic. 

That being said, research from Statista shows that the number of TV households increased by 1.83% from 2017 to 2018.

Source: Statista

In order to successfully market using TV and radio, brands often collect and analyse demographic data and corresponding viewing data from their audiences. Similar to any kind of market segmentation research, the data is collected via focus groups, surveys, interviews, etc. 

Brands today can still successfully utilise broadcast media in their strategies and see real, valuable results. Unlike many marketing methods, broadcast marketing not only uses traditional promotional techniques like product placement in TV shows and movies, traditional commercials, and endorsements by radio personalities, but it’s breaking into new media venues such as Netflix. Being consistent by maintaining a presence on TV and/or radio, whilst also broadening horizons and branching out into new venues can have a significant impact on the success of brand's endeavours. 

Direct Mail

As a marketing tactic, direct mail is still widely used. Direct mail doesn’t refer to just one method,  it encompasses a variety of materials including postcards, flyers, sales letters, newsletters, and catalogs. 

Direct mail is generally targeted as the information is sent to specific individuals or market segments. It lets you communicate your message on a more personal, one-to-one basis and also allows your brand to control who receives the message, as well as when and where they receive it - unlike digital messages, such as email and push notifications, which can be more easily distributed, either accidentally or on purpose, to people who they’re not intended for. 

Source: Marketing Charts

That being said, when it comes to direct mail, ‘spam’ is most definitely still a thing - almost all of us will receive a brochure or catalog through our letterboxes that we did not sign up for; have no interest in, and, frankly, the content gets put straight into the recycling box. Not only is this bad for the consumer, who now has to get rid of something they never wanted or considered in the first place, but the money spent by the brand to design, print, and distribute the product has all been for nothing. Additionally, it can be far more difficult to analyse the success of direct mail compared to email, for example.

Nevertheless, with accurate segmentation and targeting, direct mail can be highly personalised, and tailored, and therefore be very valuable, to consumers which, in turn, is beneficial to the brand. It can also greatly increase ROI, brand awareness, and peoples’ affinity towards a brand.