As a marketer, you’re used to working through chaos. You’re the one your team and your bosses count on to pull together a strategy, coordinate with vendors, obtain marketing materials, and execute the campaign. It can be a lot to manage. But rather than cobble together disparate digital campaigns with print marketing materials, you can integrate cutting-edge digital strategies with high-quality physical marketing to reach your customers at every point along their journeys, delivering exponentially more impact than if you used just one channel.
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What Is Phygital Marketing?
Phygital marketing is the mash-up of physical and digital marketing. Rather than trying to reach your target audience through print vehicles and digital strategies that don’t connect, you can connect the touchpoints of the digital realm with those of the physical for even greater returns. That’s the magic of the phygital mash-up: the results of physical plus digital marketing is far greater than the sum of its parts.
Three Ways to Mash It Up
Let’s look at three examples of how this powerful partnership works:
Drive from Online to In-Store
Say you have a retail clothing store. You collect customer emails when people check out at the register. Now you have three important pieces of information: what the customer bought, when they bought it, and where to reach them. You can use the power of personalization (and using personalized information is extremely powerful) to send them an email with an offer made just for them, based on what they’ve purchased in the past, down to their size, style preference, and favorite colors. In this way you can draw them into the physical store to purchase again. Not only does combining the digital with the physical build a seamless buyer’s journey, but it bolsters brand loyalty because people feel like you understand their needs. Phygital strategies like these keep customers coming back for more.
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Go from Direct Mail to Direct Sale
Now let’s say you have a franchise restaurant, with hundreds of franchisees eager to stoke sales. By harnessing point of sale (POS) data that includes purchase data and history, along with any collected demographic information, and then combining that with third party data, you can implement predictive analytics to determine who your ideal customer is. This marketing magic allows you to then target these ideal customers with direct mail offers that are tailored just for them, with the type of food they love and even the dates they typically like to purchase their food. Using digital data to power physical print marketing materials is a sure-fire way to success. The mash-up of digital and physical provides a great loyalty lift, increasing foot-traffic and sales.
Own the Entire Event Experience
So now you’re planning a trade show booth. In the past, it was enough to show up with your team, armed with brochures, business cards, and branded merch that could attract attendees to your brand and your booth. But the full marketing experience now requires a digital dimension to be effective.
The savviest trade show marketers know to deploy a flurry of social media posts leading up to the event and then implement smart geofencing campaigns during the event. Once attendees stop by your booth, keep the phygital experience going – try combining a digital choose-your-own-adventure walkthrough or explainer video with high-quality swag that extends the brand and watch the positive feedback roll in.
This one-two punch elevates the entire experience for attendees, providing much-needed reminders to find your booth and ultimately driving more connections at the event. Both digital and physical work together to elevate the experience.
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Full Service Phygital Marketing, Simplified
It’s a lot to manage, and that’s where we can help. Ironmark has made a name for itself as a full-service “phygital” marketing partner, melding digital and physical marketing seamlessly. Where many firms focus on one or the other, we harness each to work even harder, in a mutually beneficial cross-referencing that removes marketing complexities to create economies of scale, build larger audiences, and deliver a higher number of conversions.
We believe in making things easier for our clients without sacrificing quality, creativity, or results. Every full service marketing effort is cohesive, consistent, and aligned with your brand’s big picture. We offer affordable digital marketing services that integrate perfectly with physical marketing – meaning your social media feeds into your website, which sends customers to your physical location, where there is signage that continues to unify the brand. Each step in the buyer’s journey is reinforced by both digital and physical milestones. Ready to master the mash-up? Start now.
