Mix it Up: Social Strategies + Traditional Advertising

Melissa LeiterBelow is a guest post from Melissa Leiter (@mfearon4), inbound marketing manager at Palmer Ad Agency. The agency has been around for 25 years and is constantly adapting to the ever-changing ways of the advertising and marketing world. Melissa is responsible for managing its inbound marketing efforts, as well as optimizing inbound marketing and social media proposals and strategies for clients.

Inbound marketing is a sure fire way to successfully maximize the return on your investment for your clients’ marketing efforts. But, if you’re looking for a progressive, beneficial way to create a marketing strategy that stands out from the rest, you may want to consider adding an element of outbound marketing as well.

There are several ways to incorporate “traditional” advertising practices (e.g. print advertisements, radio spots and television commercials) into your clients’ inbound marketing efforts. We’ve seen this done by bigger brands and companies, especially during the Super Bowl, most frequently.

Keep in mind, however, that coupling outbound with inbound will add a larger cost to marketing budgets so there are a few things you should take into consideration first:

  1. Does the client have the budget to expand marketing efforts?
  2. Are target markets both using social media and reachable via traditional advertising routes?

If the answer to these questions is “yes,” then you have a prime candidate for advertising inbound efforts.

Tips to Create Your Advertising Strategy

When setting out to promote social activity via outbound channels, there are two important factors to inspire the process.

The first is to stay creative. We can’t stress this enough. There are a hundred clever ways this can be done well and also not so well.  For example, it is not enough to simply say, “Follow us on Twitter,” or “Find us on Facebook” when integrating social into ads.

Secondly, give consumers incentives to follow the brand. This should be the driving force behind whatever campaign you create.

We’ve seen several progressive campaigns that have successfully advertised their social media accounts. Some potential strategies you may want to try:

  • Create a strictly social media giveaway that you advertise with traditional outlets, i.e. tickets, coupons and/or product giveaways.
  • Produce an advertising campaign that promotes one social media platform. For example, advise consumers they can learn more on the client’s YouTube page by watching a video. Or, promote their Pinterest page by highlighting a useful or enticing pin board.
  • Create an advertising campaign that has consumers vote for something on Twitter. Then, develop a unique hash tag for consumers to use so that you can monitor the conversation. Make sure to include the hash tag and contest information in the advertisement.
  • Create an advertisement that promotes a witty riddle competition. Provide clues on a social media platform. People will enjoy being part of a game and trying to solve a problem while also competing for a chance to win something.

Like any marketing effort, whatever strategies you employ to promote your clients’ social media accounts via traditional advertising practices, make sure you set objectives and are constantly measuring to see if you are in fact meeting them.

Have you mixed inbound and outbound strategies to improve the effectiveness of both? Share your experiences below.  



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