by Jay Miletsky

‘Hybrid Marketing’ – sounds intimidating, doesn’t it?  At the very least, it sounds expensive.

Well guess what?  It isn’t.  Hybrid marketing simply means fusing your traditional and social media marketing strategies so they work together rather than separately.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, and companies of all sizes can take advantage of it.

To illustrate, here are five simple ideas for using hybrid marketing effectively:

1. Redo the basics

Even in a digital world, companies still use the basics: business cards, letterhead and printed brochures.  And these items all provide contact information for recipients to reach the company.  In the mid 90’s, the standard info changed to include Web URLs and e-mail addresses.  Well, it’s time for another change.  Now, these items need to include your company’s Twitter handle and Facebook Fan page URL.

These new items may start making business cards a little busy – consider leaving the fax number and (except in cases where live traffic is required, like restaurants and retail stores), even the physical address off to save room.  Allow people looking for this info to find them on your Web site, instead.

2. Putting a coupon in your print ads? Send them to Facebook instead

There’s nothing like a discount to get people to make a purchase.  But a single coupon can only encourage a single sale.  Instead, use that space to let consumers know that they can download exclusive, valuable coupons by becoming a fan of your brand on Facebook.  That way, they not only get the one coupon, but they’ll have access to future coupons, other information, and you’ll have the opportunity to forge a more personal relationship with them.

The figure below shows an example.

3. Send them to Twitter instead of your site

Companies typically try to promote their Web address in their advertising, in a push to get more visitors.  And it’ll probably work – tagging your ads with your Web site might send people to your site, where they’ll stay for maybe a couple of minutes, if you’re lucky.  After that, they’re gone.

Now, I don’t subscribe to the old “if you build it they will come” adage, but a visit to a brand’s site has become part of the modern buying cycle, and the fact that your advertising at all will likely drive traffic – people will know how to find your site without screaming your URL.  Instead, use tag time and space to drive people to follow you Twitter, where you can keep them updated on a more regular basis, keep your brand top of mind, and get a lot more from each consumer than two extra minutes.

4. Abracadabra: Magically move traffic from your trade show booth to your YouTube channel

I wish I could say this was my idea, but it’s not.  But I think it’s pretty clever in its simplicity, and want to add it to the list.  A few weeks ago I was walking the aisles of a trade show, and I noticed a small crowd of people straining to watch a presentation at one of the booths. So I went to check it out.  There was a magician doing some pretty interesting tricks – a little cheesy, but still kind of fun.  The cool part about it was that rather than hand everyone a company brochure which I would have thrown out, they gave everyone in the crowd a printed card, and invited us to visit their YouTube channel where we could see how the magic tricks were done.  It got my curiosity up, and after a full day of walking the show, they were the only company I bothered to check out online afterward.

Okay, I’m not saying that everyone should do that exact same thing, but it’s a good idea that you can use as a foundation to brainstorm from.

5. Base traditional marketing on social media trends

A big part of social media marketing is listening – taking the time to understand what the online community is talking about and how they feel, in order to shape your own voice and contributions to the conversation.  But why stop there?  The trends you spot online are representative of what people are interested in, and what they want to know more about.  So take this info and incorporate it into offline marketing efforts, developing advertising messages that more accurately reflect your audiences’ current frame of mind.

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These are just a few broad strokes – the number of ways to mix and match traditional and social media marketing are virtually unlimited.  What are some of your ideas for hybrid marketing?  I’d love to hear them!