Once upon a time, business owners had to go to extreme measures to catch the attention of their potential customers. They’d hang signs, broadcast their business on the news, attend long conferences to expand their network, or wait until word-of-mouth circulates far enough to reach the ears of prospects. Unfortunately, their reach had always been limited locally, not to mention the capital needed to carry out all of these marketing activities.
Nowadays, our marketing efforts don’t suffer at all in reaching every corner of the globe. After all, the internet has introduced us to endless possibilities. Despite the digital age we’re living in though, we still use some old-school marketing strategies that don’t seem to be going extinct anytime. Here are six old-school marketing strategies that are still as effective today like they’d been back in the day.
1. Handouts and Flyers
It seems like printing handouts and flyers comes naturally to most marketers. We don’t even think twice about designing and printing them whenever we have an offline event, with many of us keeping a stock at our business premises to offer any visitors. This old marketing strategy survives to this day, despite how poorly its digital equivalent is performing. No one clicks on ads nowadays; most internet users even install adblockers to remove these ads from the pages they visit altogether. When it comes to real-life though, you’d find it much more difficult to ignore a happy and smiling person offering you a flyer or a handout.
2. Branded Giveaways
People love getting stuff for free, especially when it’s both cool and useful. This is the main reason that branded giveaways have managed to survive to our day. It’s pretty popular for businesses to brand products and items and give them away for free for visitors, especially in events, festivals, and gatherings. Passersby wouldn’t even mind wearing or using something branded for a business they haven’t dealt with previously if it’s useful for them or it’s cool to show off. These items can be caps, pens, bags, T-shirts, flash disks, mousepads, or any other premium items.
3. SMS Marketing
Many people believe SMS marketing to be dead. After all, who needs to check their phones when they have the internet and all the social media accounts and emails to check every three minutes? Turns out, everyone. When it comes to numbers, SMS marketing results in a proud 90% open rate, in contrast to the 20% of other digital marketing strategies. In addition, if you supplement your service with an SMS broadcast service. As a result, you will be assured that your message will reach your audience no matter where they are located or how the Internet is down. It’s the best way to instantly reach customers and prospects, especially when it comes to hot deals and local offers.
4. Signs
If we go back in time looking for the oldest forms of marketing, we’ll probably narrow it down to signs. Back in the day, businesses relied heavily on signage to attract customers, going to great lengths to make them attractive, informative, and tempting. We haven’t changed much in this area since then; we still invest a lot of time, creativity, effort, and money to create unique signages to attract passersby. Likewise, we still hang advertisements on billboards and utilize every kind of sign to grab their attention, even if it means hiring sign spinners to entertain the audience.
5. Coupons and Loyalty Cards
Coupons and loyalty cards have also been around for a long time; both work in opposite ways to reach the same goal. You can offer your customers a coupon to get free products or services on their next visit. Alternatively, you can enroll them in loyalty card programs so they can accumulate points throughout their engagement with you, after which they can use these points to get more rewards.
6. Product Demonstrations
Another great way that never fails to pique the interest of your audience is to demonstrate your products in public. Who would ever say no to playing a game in your stand, get a taste of delicious food, or have fun jumping on a trampoline – all for free? This real-time demonstration is one sure way to get passersby to engage with your business.
Best case scenario, they’ll be too awed to the extent of making the purchase. Even if they don’t buy any products or subscribe to any services, it’s enough to leave a positive impression on them and open a way for communication. Better yet, demonstrating your products will create a crowd, which will surely attract more customers than any other offline marketing methods.
We owe to the internet for expanding our reach to every corner of the globe. However, many old-school marketing strategies survive to this day due to their efficiency. We still print flyers, offer branded giveaways, utilize SMS marketing, advertise using signs, offer coupons and loyalty cards, and demonstrate our products to create crowds.