If you’re like most business owners, you’re feeling pretty overwhelmed at the moment with all the changes happening in the world of marketing and marketing strategy. Trying to figure out how to integrate your online and offline marketing strategies successfully can feel like a task, to say the least. Trying to figure out what will work for your particular industry can feel even more daunting. As a result, you may be tempted to just give up and hope for the best.

But you shouldn’t! Instead, take heart in knowing that you’re not alone in this struggle. We’re all in this together—and that’s precisely why we’ve put together this guide—to help you navigate the choppy waters of online and offline marketing strategy and integration successfully.

Create A Game Plan

The first step to successfully integrating your online and offline marketing strategies is to create a game plan. When it comes to your marketing, you don’t want to be flying by the seat of your pants. You want to be making strategic decisions about your advertising and marketing based on clear research and analysis. So before you start cutting corners or rushing into things without thinking them through, take some time to plan out your strategy and work towards gradually implementing and testing your new tactics.

Determine The Aim

When you sit down to strategize, the first thing you’ll need to do is determine the aim of your marketing. What do you hope to get out of this endeavor? Will you be trying to grow your business online? Will you be looking to expand your reach to a larger audience? Whatever your aim, decide what you intend to do as a result of this plan and what you hope to achieve. Having a clear aim will help you determine the type of tactics you need to use to reach your goal. When you know what you’re aiming for, it’s much easier to measure your progress along the way.

Set Up Specific Milestones

A crucial part of any well-thought-out plan is setting up specific milestones. Create a list of everything you need to achieve to show that you’ve made measurable progress towards your goal. For example, if you’re looking to increase your social media presence, you could set up a goal to have doubled your Instagram following in six months. You’ll find plenty of social media benchmarks to aim for, so don’t feel bad if your goal seems unreachable. Just keep plugging away and working towards it.

Once you’ve set your goal, you can use the benchmarks to measure your progress. Seeing your progress—and knowing how much you’ve accomplished towards your goal—is an important part of keeping motivated and determined throughout the process. Seeing the benefits of your hard work will keep you motivated to keep up with all your efforts.

Create A Research-Based Strategy

An essential part of any well-thought-out strategy is doing your research. When it comes to your marketing, you need to take the time to find out what other businesses in your industry are doing. By getting to know what your competitors are up to, you can determine the best way to stand out from the crowd and gain a stronghold in your market. You can also use your research to benchmark how other businesses in your industry are doing and identify the main areas of success and failure.

Make a note of what you find out and plug it into your plan. For example, if you discover that most businesses in your industry publish weekly blog posts, you may decide that you’ll start publishing your own content to stand out from the crowd.

Determine The Type Of Content

Another important part of any strategy is to determine the type of content you’ll use to disseminate your message. If you’re looking to attract and retain customers, you may decide that creating informative and educational content is the way to go. But if you’re more interested in branding and promoting your product, you may decide that using entertaining content is the way to go. These are just examples—your industry will dictate which type of content you need to use to effectively communicate with your audience. Ensure that you choose content that will be engaging and easy to understand by all the people you plan on reaching with your ad campaign.

Determine The Timing

The last—and probably most important—part of any strategy is to determine the timing of your campaign. You need to choose the right moment to implement your plan—whether that’s now, or at a later date. You can’t always predict how events will play out, and that’s why you need to choose your moment wisely.

If you’re looking to market your business now, that’s great! But if you’re waiting for the perfect moment, that may never come. Instead, you need to choose the moment that’s right for you, based on the benefits you hope to gain from this plan. It may be a good idea to build up a small budget and test the waters with a very limited campaign. Only after you’ve determined the success of your campaign should you commit to a larger budget and more extensive efforts.

Begin Small

As we mentioned above, the first step to integrating your online and offline marketing strategies is to begin small. You don’t need to overhaul your entire advertising and marketing strategy overnight. Instead, begin by taking a look at your current online marketing strategy. What are you doing to promote your business online? How are you conducting your social media campaign? What are you planning to do with your website and blog? Begin by taking these routes and using them to your advantage. Test a few things out and see how they work—if something isn’t bringing in the results you’re looking for, it’s time to change something up.

Once you’ve determined the best way to promote your business online, you can use that knowledge to develop and implement your offline strategy. What are your plans to attract and retain customers in your industry? How are you going to get the word out there that your business exists? Think about what you know will work for your industry and create a plan to implement it. Develop key partnerships with other businesses in your industry to drive traffic to your site. Consider how many people you know in real life and develop a plan to create more connections with potential customers.

Be Brave

Above all else, you need to be brave. Marketers and businesses who are serious about succeeding use this as a motto. Remember: being brave means not being afraid to try new things—even if you think they’re not going to work out. You may not always be right, but as long as you try new things, you may find something that works well for your industry. Don’t be afraid to take a chance and innovate—after all, that’s what made you successful in the first place.

If you want to successfully integrate your online and offline marketing strategies, you need to remember to be patient. It may seem easy enough to just set up a Facebook page and some adverts, but you must remember to take the time to grow your audience. Once you have a sizable audience, you’ll start seeing results from your efforts. Keep at it and you can surely achieve success.