The Internet has changed marketing forever and created entirely new marketing channels, without the Internet there'd be no such thing as email marketing, SEO, or Inbound Marketing. But that doesn't mean traditional marketing is dead, in fact in some areas, such as promotional merchandise and even printing, the rise of the Internet has made old school marketing even more valuable.
A website allows companies to tell their stories in unlimited detail at extremely low cost but it's only effective when customers and prospects go to the website to get the story. Promotional merchandise and printing are very effective at driving traffic to a company's website and more importantly to the specific section of the site you want them to visit.
A recent article written for the Association of Strategic Marketing asserts that promotional items are the simplest way to drive a business marketing message. When you combine the power of promotional products with the power of the Internet you can dramatically expand the reach of any marketing campaign. The following 5 ideas can help you get started and super charge your next marketing campaign.
Give away a useful promotional product as a reward for an action taken on your website. It's amazing what people will do for free stuff or a chance to win something. Create an offer to give them a branded coffee mug, a personalized mouse pad, or even a stylus pen in exchange for information you can use. Some marketers claim an email address is worth as much as $120, if that's true an email address in exchange for a $3 promotional item is a really good investment.
Create a hidden section of your website that is only accessible with a specific URL address and provide that URL on specific promotional merchandise or print material. This allows you to measure exactly how many visitors come to that section of the site so you can measure exactly how well a particular promotion or special event does. This can be especially effective in determining your return on investment for a trade show or some other event you're involved in.
Drive traffic at a trade show or special event by creating buzz about a unique promotional product that ties in with your overall marketing strategy. Hubspot an inbound marketing company had huge success with this strategy and their unicorns at Dreamforce 2011, not only were they able to drive enormous amounts of traffic at the event they were able to maintain the unicorn marketing theme for months after the event. They even went so far as to issue an apology for the unicorn shortage they created.
Include a QR code on specialized promotional merchandise and printed material to capture 
mobile traffic. A QR code is a barcode like image that you can print anywhere, when scanned with a smartphone it will bring the user to a specific web page where you can further engage them. QR codes appear on all kids of print advertising you can generate your own QR codes and add them to any of your printed material for almost no additional cost.
Make it easier for users to to find specific information on a website by providing specific URL information in an easy use and easy to find place. Army Onesource uses this strategy to reduce phone traffic and direct users to specific high use area's of their massive website. Users are sent a simple refrigerator magnet with the URL addresses of the most used parts of their site reducing the number of phone calls from frustrated users that can't find what they are looking for.
The Internet has created numerous new marketing channels but it's also increased the power of traditional channels like promotional merchandise and print. Combine the power of these two mediums and super charge your marketing and your results.