The result of a recent survey conducted by Jupiter Research and search engine marketing firm, iProspect, showed an outstanding two-third respondents said their online searches were now influenced by offline marketing.
Despite this, we’ve begun to see more and small business owners ditch traditional forms of offline marketing for a more versatile, less expensive, online marketing campaign. Is it truly time to leave offline marketing for good?
Online marketing has plenty of positives that offline simply cannot compete with. Here are some of them:
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – Do we have to add anything further to this one? Search engine optimization allows for a company to get their products, services, and brand indexed by the many search engines -Google, Yahoo, and Bing are the top three. This leads to greater visibility and a well-defined target audience.
Rapid changes – I was reading a recent article on CNN in which toy manufacturer, The Bridge Direct, lamented they lost $100,000 when Justin Beiber changed his trade-mark hairstyle. That story goes a long way in explaining the difference between traditional and online marketing – in the former, changes cannot be instigated immediately, resulting in a loss of money and market share. When it comes to online advertising, the reaction time is minimal, and if handled correctly, can result in little or no loss.
Tracking real time results – There are a number of tools (Google Analytics being the most well-known) that allow you to track real time results and determine how your SEO campaigns are fairing. Not doing so well? Change your copy, create new graphics, and have an entirely new campaign at your disposal at the faction of the cost you would spend redesigning a new offline campaign.
Niche marketing – While traditional direct marketing campaigns have always been about targeting a specific audience group, when you take it online, you can redefine your target audience to even more specific qualities -it becomes even easier to specify age, gender, income, location, and education online than it does offline.
Instant conversions – This is probably the biggest draw when it comes to online SEO advertising campaigns. You bring in your audience with the expectation that they will buy from you –not tomorrow or in the next few hours, but now –immediately! This conversion is much harder offline, and factor in the people power required to keep it going.
So to answer the question- Does offline marketing have a place in an online world? The answer I believe is, yes. I’m a big fan of traditional marketing and I’ve had the chance to work on some pretty exciting campaigns which have resulted in successful branding and bigger profits for the companies concerned. But there no doubt in my mind that online marketing -such as banner advertising, social network advertising, PPC campaigns, and yes, even online directory advertising -is an absolute must for any company that wishes to take its game to the next level. If you are looking to reach a wider audience and make the most of your ecommerce store, online marketing will get you there.
