What is Traditional Marketing and Do You Even Need It?

Seven is more than just a lucky number. If you’ve thought about marketing your invention idea, perhaps you’ve heard the rule of seven. It’s one of the oldest and trusted concepts in traditional marketing. A person needs to see or hear about your product or brand at least seven times before they convert into a customer.

It sounds weird, right? But trust comes with repetition. Especially when potential customers have so many great options to choose from. 

Let’s think about how this works in our day-to-day lives. Here’s a familiar example but one that’s a little different from marketing your invention idea in Austin, Texas. Say a new local restaurant opens up in your neighborhood. Do you walk in right away to grab a table? Chances are you don’t. You’ll look through the glass to judge the interior. Browse through the menu to see their dishes and pricing. You’ll go online to check for reviews and pictures of their food. You’ll go on social media to check what friends, family, or food bloggers have to say about the restaurant. All these touchpoints add-up to influence your purchasing decision.

So building awareness is important because it increases the likelihood that a customer will pick you over your competition. Generating awareness through marketing is broken into two broad categories: digital and traditional marketing.

A few weeks ago we touched on digital marketing so in this article we’ll talk about traditional marketing.

Traditional marketing – creating print media

What is Traditional Marketing?

Using traditional marketing for your invention idea in Austin means using marketing techniques prior to the internet (so think of digital marketing as marketing through the internet). There are four categories of traditional marketing:

• Broadcast: Your typical TV and radio ads.
• Print media: Ad spreads in your newspapers, magazines, and even the towering billboards you see while your driving or on top of buildings.
• Direct mail: Think Sears catalog, flyers, and letters the mailman leaves in your physical mailbox.
• Direct sales: Expos, trade shows, door-to-door product demonstrations.
• Telemarketing: Your favorite. But seriously, marketing over the phone is still an effective tactic.

Pros of Traditional Marketing

• User Experience: Marketing your invention idea in Austin is also about personal selling the user experience. If you’re selling directly, you have the opportunity to demonstrate the user experience of your product and even let your potential customer try it for themselves. This is the reason why expos and trade shows remain a popular marketing channel for B2B businesses.
• Target Audience: Traditional marketing methods help you reach older demographics who do not regularly use the internet.
• Broad Awareness: Public placement of TV ads and billboards gives you the potential to reach a huge audience of varying demographics.
• Relationship Building: When in person, every flyer or brochure you and hand out is an opportunity for you to establish a personal connection with a potential customer.

Case Study: ChaiEasy

Remember, one of the best ways to validate your idea is by getting feedback on the user experience. And whom better to validate your product than the overwhelmingly successful Dragons of CBC’s powerhouse TV program Dragons’ Den.

Mako Design’s clients, Bobby and Samir of ChaiEasy, recently had the opportunity to demonstrate their product on this show. Along with breaking down their business plan, they also showed exactly how their product works and how it solves a customer’s pain point. The Dragons we’re incredibly impressed by the simplicity and innovativeness of the product. Even a few of the Dragons fought amongst themselves to invest in the ChaiEasy! In the end, Bobby and Samir secured a whopping $250,000 investment to help grow and scale their company. On top of that, they just proved that they have a credible product to a nationwide audience of hundreds of thousands of potential customers.

ChaiEasy pitching on Dragons Den

Cons of Traditional Marketing

• Expensive: The price to publish a traditional marketing ad is typically outside of the budget for small businesses, startups, and home inventors. A print ad can run you anywhere from $2,000 to $160,000. Similarly, the average price for marketing your invention design in Austin with a digital billboard is $19,250. 
• Difficult to Measure: Specifically your ROI. It’s very difficult to track measurable data because you don’t know who exactly you’re reaching with your ad and how they react to your advertisement. It’s kind of like when you’re hitting a piñata while blindfolded – swing wildly until you hit the jackpot.
• Uneditable: Once your ad is published, you can’t edit it. Typos or incorrect recordings, however small, can’t be corrected once distributed to the public.

As a small business, startup, or home inventor, marketing your invention idea in Austin using traditional methods are probably out of your budget. The good news is that at this stage, most traditional marketing methods are not for you. Why? Because paying for huge billboards in the middle of Austin or regular TV ads during a Dallas Stars game is usually reserved for the big guys like McDonald’s.

It’s a way for well-established brands with deep pockets to maximize brand awareness by repeating an excessive number of advertisements in your daily life.

By securing that billboard, TV spot, and magazine spread, McDonald’s objective here is to make sure that the next time you’re hungry, the first thing that comes to your mind is a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese. And not that local restaurant that just opened up in your neighborhood.