Guest Post: Time to Get Back to Basics: Traditional Digital 101

Marketers are so wrapped up in their Web 2.0 strategies – those ‘shiny new objects’ like social media and mobile – that they often overlook the value of their traditional digital marketing tactics. Yes, that’s “traditional” digital, defined as tactics like search, display ads, websites, and email.

These elements are the core tactics in your marketing and communications arsenal, critical for driving your message and measuring success for online and offline initiatives alike.

But when was the last time you stepped back to see how well your team is executing on these tactics? Here are some things to think about when evaluating the bread and butter of your digital marketing communications.

Review your website

Take, for instance, your websites. All too often, websites become dumping grounds for content rather than vehicles to drive engagement with and loyalty among customers. How well does your brand’s website integrate with your other marketing communication tactics? Is it serving your business needs? Are you doing all you can to optimize SEO?

Polish your search

Likewise, you may need to dust off your search tactics. Are you allocating enough resources to ensure your brand is top-of-mind and top of the list in Internet searches? There’s much you can be doing to boost your brand’s ranking in organic, or unpaid searches, even before you invest in paid search. Look again at your site design and architecture, keywords, tags, links, and metadata. Remember to evaluate your site against accessibility and medical information literacy metrics as well.

Use email to engage

When it comes to email marketing, effective campaigns establish regular, ongoing dialogue and build a relationship, create and enhance brand awareness and loyalty, and drive consumer behavior (and top-line growth and profitability). The messaging should be personal, the permissions current, and engagement and frequency anticipated, timely, and relevant. If your email campaigns aren’t getting the desired results, it’s time to take another look.

Display properly

Finally, display ads should be reevaluated as well. Are your placements appropriate and yielding a strong return on investment? What are the adjacencies saying about your brand? How well are you leveraging display ads to target your desired audience? Is the message strong enough to cut through the clutter?

Done right, traditional digital marketing tactics will work hard for your brand and consistently yield strong results. Done wrong – or ignored for the shiny new objects – they will bog down and fragment your marketing strategy, leading to wasted time and resources.