Blend digital and IRL marketing

Marketers are putting physical tactics back into the mix, pairing postcards, print pieces, and small workshops with search, email, and social campaigns instead of relying on digital alone. (uspsdelivers.com) That shift is showing up in both mail and events data. Forrester said on May 23, 2025 that 59% of business-to-business marketers planned more small hosted events over the next 12 months, while budgets were flat or down for two-thirds of event teams. (forrester.com) Mail is being used as part of those coordinated campaigns, not as a standalone blast. The United States Postal Service said marketers now use QR codes, near field communication tags, and personalized web addresses to move people from a printed piece to landing pages, demos, coupons, and event registration. (uspsdelivers.com) The current playbook is built around smaller, trackable touches. Forrester said overall event satisfaction fell 8% from 2024 to 2025, and more than 90% of organizations said they were focused on getting the right audience, proving return on investment, and improving follow-up after events. (forrester.com) That is pushing marketers to treat an in-person workshop more like a campaign than a one-off gathering. Search Engine Land defines local search engine optimization as the work of making a business visible in Google and Maps results, where calls, bookings, and foot traffic often come from people searching nearby with immediate intent. (searchengineland.com) Content teams are also working with tighter staffing, which helps explain the push for narrower events and reusable assets. Content Marketing Institute said in its 2025 business-to-business benchmarks that 54% of teams with dedicated content staff had only two to five people, and 58% rated their strategy only “moderately effective.” (contentmarketinginstitute.com) Direct mail is being measured with the same discipline. The Postal Service said 40% of marketers cited audience targeting and data access limits as their top challenge, and argued that mail tied to digital tracking can be connected to key performance indicators the same way online channels are. (uspsdelivers.com) Industry surveys show why postcards and other simple formats keep showing up in these plans. In a USPS Delivers report based on Forrester research with 324 marketing decision-makers, postcards were a leading format in finance, and 87% of automotive marketers said direct mail innovations improved coordination with other channels. (uspsdelivers.com) The practical result is a blended funnel: a mailed invite or printed leave-behind drives a scan, the scan leads to a page built for search and follow-up, and the event produces content clips, emails, and review signals that keep working after the room clears. (uspsdelivers.com, searchengineland.com, forrester.com)