TV advertising has long been a traditional medium to grow brand awareness and drive consumer interest in a company, product, or service. However, just because it's traditional doesn't mean it no longer works. TV remains one of the best ways to reach your audience, with one of the highest returns, and is a massively successful element of any campaign.
Using an integrated marketing approach to combine social media and TV advertising into one unified strategy allows you to further capitalize on the medium. About 95% of modern consumers watch TV with a mobile device in their hand, so when you blend your digital and TV marketing into one campaign, you'll be able to achieve an optimal ROI from your advertising efforts.
Benefits of Combined Advertising
Just as a carpenter needs different tools to build an outstanding house, a marketing team needs to leverage different mediums to craft a winning strategy.
For example, television is a fantastic platform to help you spread broad awareness of your brand. Whether you are advertising to a local demographic or on a national level, TV commercials can help your company stay "top of mind" for your target consumers.
On the other hand, TV is often comparatively less effective at driving immediate consumer action, which is where social media shows its benefit. Social media enables a level of engagement with your audience that TV can't offer. It affords you access to:
- Higher engagement using conversations via comments and replies
- Market research through social listening
- Polls and quizzes
Even ads on many social media platforms are "clickable," meaning users can easily (and instantly) click through to the product's website with minimal friction.
Combining TV ads with social media marketing allows you to create multiple touchpoints for engaging with your customers. In turn, these multiple touchpoints drive awareness and generate momentum, ultimately leading to more clicks onto your site. In addition, the analytics gained from social media ads can inform your future campaign strategies, leading to better results over time.
Here we'll discuss 3 ways to effectively integrate social media marketing and TV advertising into your overall marketing plan.
Create a Cohesive Style
One of the most impactful actions you can take when combining TV with social media is developing, then sticking to, a cohesive brand style. In other words, you want to maintain consistency in aspects such as your logo, color scheme, tone, and messaging. Allstate's "You're in good hands" tagline and H&R Block's distinctive green, black, and white color palette are two examples of brand consistency shared across multiple platforms.
Developing and maintaining a cohesive style demonstrates stability within your business and will reassure your customers that they can trust your brand. Over time, your consistent brand presence will generate momentum and attract more and more consumers to your business.
Be Clear and Direct
Have you ever watched a commercial and wondered at the end what was being advertised? That lack of clarity hurts your brand image and is one of the top mistakes marketers make. True, you want your ads to be memorable and creative, but you also want them to be clear about what they are advertising and direct regarding what your consumers should do next.
The last thing you want is for prospects to search for your company just to learn what it is you do. Not only will that "muddy the waters" in terms of your SEO strategy, but more importantly, it means that your ads are missing the attention of at least a portion of your ideal customer demographic. Ensure your messaging is clear and include direct calls to action in your TV and social media ads.
Identify the Best Programs
Finally, you need to identify which programs your target audience is interested in to advertise during those shows. Doing so will increase the chances they'll see your ads. Additionally, it will give you an idea of the best times to engage with your consumers via social media. Odds are your viewers will have their mobile devices either already in hand or close at hand. Check where engagement overlaps for both and develop strategies to be active on social media while your ads are airing.
You can also take advantage of marketing opportunities during special events, like live sports or concerts. For example, if you sponsor an event, you may be able to arrange for the official hashtag to include a nod to your brand. The Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show is an excellent example of this kind of marketing. If you can put your brand out there as part of a sponsorship deal, then you'll insert yourself directly into the conversation that your audience is having — which is a great place to be! It's likely that events will start using branded hashtags as part of the event to further insert brands into the conversation.
TV remains an exceptional form of advertising, and its impact increases when combined with an effective social media strategy. When you integrate social media marketing and TV advertising into one blended approach, you'll likely see a higher ROI from your ad spend, your brand will carry more momentum, and your business will grow more quickly.
