The Golden Globes are celebrating the best in movies, TV, and screenplays. But what about the best pairings in marketing? While Hollywood loves a star-studded duo, marketers know the real magic happens when the physical and digital collide (hello, phygital!), or two cross-channel solutions come together as a force to be reckoned with. We’re awarding the top marketing mashups that deserve the spotlight in your 2025 marketing campaigns. After all, dual strategies prove time and again that the whole is far better than the sum of its parts.
Best Duo for Driving Leads: Lead Intelligence & Trigger-Driven Direct Marketing
Why They Win: There’s no better place to go fishing for leads than in your own pond. With lead intelligence, you can identify your website visitors by name, email, and even home address. Pair this with trigger-driven direct marketing to target these interested prospects with content personalized to meet them along every touchpoint of their buyer’s journey. It’s a match that wins every time.
How They Work Together: Lead intelligence tools like LeadsID identify and engage up to 40-50% of your interested visitors. These valuable leads can then be nurtured through a trigger-driven direct marketing campaign. If a lead fills out the form on your site, you can reach out with an email personalized for them, then send them a postcard with a discount for the items they browsed online – or wish them happy birthday with a special code. In short, use the intel to better connect with each lead. It’s the ultimate partnership for targeted marketing campaigns that deliver conversions.
Best Personalized Campaign Pairing: Predictive Analytics & Direct Mail for Multi-Location Marketing
Why They Win: Marketing across multiple locations is complex, but combining the power of predictive analytics and direct mail makes it look easy. Use personalized data from each location to create hyper-targeted direct mail campaigns that resonate with the nuanced preferences of local audiences.
How They Work Together: Predictive analytics helps you understand the trends and behaviors of your audience, ensuring that every direct mail piece has the right message, for the right audience, delivered at the right time. Whether it’s crafting unique offers for a city-specific audience or timing campaigns to align with regional events, these two are dedicated traffic drivers. In fact, Ironmark’s Deliver Media recently helped Domino’s Pizza harness this dream team for a 605% ROI! That’s a marketing win.
Best Cross-Channel Tandem: Digital Advertising & Direct Mail
Why They Win: Digital advertising brings speed and scale, while direct mail adds that tangible touch. Together, this phygital team builds powerful multi-touch campaigns that create a seamless buyer’s journey experience.
How They Work Together: Imagine this: A potential customer sees your ad on Instagram, and a week later, they receive a beautifully designed postcard in their mailbox reinforcing your message. It’s memorable, effective, and shows you’re willing to go the extra mile (or push the envelope) to connect completely with them. A famously phygital mash-up like this always provides more bang for your buck than relying on one channel alone.
Related: A Guide to Combining Traditional Print and Digital Marketing
Best Event Power Couple: Content Marketing & Geofencing
Why They Win: A successful event isn’t just about great planning, it’s about having a well-rounded strategy that creates buzz before, during, and after. That’s where content marketing comes in – reach attendees with a compelling invite, continue to entice them to attend the event, make the event memorable, and follow up afterwards for a lasting impression. Use geofencing to keep the party going during the event, with messaging digitally targeted towards the event crowd throughout the day that completely immerses them in the experience.
How They Work Together: You can significantly elevate your brand by hosting an event or attending a relevant one. Content marketing amplifies the reach with exciting blog posts, personal emails, and social media teasers. Geofencing lets you send messages to attendees’ phones during the conference, trade show, or other event to let them know about ongoing activities or other announcements. Together, these two marketing strategies drive inbound leads and ensure that your event is a smashing success. Think of them as the perfect party planners.
Best Brand-Savvy Quartet: Brand Management Platforms Paired With Large Format Print, Commercial Print, & Branded Merchandise
Why They Win: Brand management platforms are the unsung heroes of marketing campaigns, seamlessly tying together all your assets in one beautifully secure, organized, and accessible place. And when they house physical marketing assets like large format print, commercial print, and branded merchandise, they make campaigns more organized, cohesive, and easy to manage.
How They Work Together: For a consistent look and feel across multiple formats, your brand management platform has you covered. From there, large format print grabs attention at storefronts, events, and on the road, commercial print reinforces your message in brochures and magazines, and branded merchandise keeps your audience thinking about you long after the campaign ends. A brand management platform is the Swiss Army Knife of marketing – versatile, reliable, and indispensable. Ironmark’s own platform, Ignition, is a gamechanger.
Related: 6 Perks of Online Marketing Portals for Your Brand
And the Final Winner Is?
You, obviously. When you deploy phygital or cross-channel campaigns like the nominees above, you’re unleashing the power of more than one solution, for results far greater than the sum of their parts. Whether you’re leveraging lead intelligence for trigger-driven direct marketing, blending digital ads with direct mail, or excelling at events with content marketing and geofencing, the impact is exponential.
So as you plan your 2025 marketing campaigns, remember: The best results come from strategic pairings. Phygital and cross-channel aren’t just buzzwords; they’re the key to staying ahead of the competition and connecting with audiences in meaningful ways. Just like the Golden Globes celebrate the best collaborations in Hollywood, your marketing campaigns can win by incorporating these pairings for the starring roles. Lights, camera, action – let’s make some marketing magic!
