Online vs Offline Marketing – Final Showdown

There are a lot of different ways to market your business. With the steady increase in Internet users, it is widely debated that online marketing is more important compared to conventional offline marketing methodologies. Be it any kind of marketing, the whole point is to reach out to potential customers and create brand awareness. Some of the smartest marketers and business owners are the ones who utilize both offline and online marketing effectively to find new customers to increase revenue. There are somethings that offline marketing does better and there are certain marketing methodologies that work well on the Internet.

Let us take a look at where online marketing works better and where offline marketing beats online marketing fair and square.

Global audience

When you have a website on the Internet or running an online marketing campaign, your site could get visits from Sydney, to Bombay to San Francisco. Of course one can target their audience by using local SEO optimization methods, but the fact that someone living in Slovenia can easily look up your business name on Google and find your website even if you are located in Sydney is simply awesome. No offline marketing methodology can beat online marketing when it comes to global presence.

Offline marketing is serious business

A decade ago, anything PDF, .doc and e-mails were taken seriously, now that they have become an integral part of life or we should rather say a banality, and the fact that we seldom receive snail mail or advertising material delivered to our door step, people take printed marketing material more seriously than ever before. Most importantly, a lot of online marketers are spamming emails since it usually doesn’t cost a dime to blast out emails to a lot of people. People nowadays take most emails with a grain of salt or a truck load of salt if the email is not sent from an e-mail id that is not on the right domain.

Cost

Online marketing is considered a bit cheap compared to offline marketing unless you are willing to shell out a lot of money in PPC campaigns. If you are willing to roll up your sleeves and willing to learn SEO, do the necessary research, create great content and build your profile on the Internet, you can make your site rank well in search engines like Google, without hiring a online marketing firm and spend an awful lot of money in PPC. However, when it comes to offline marketing, you need to hire a competent digital printing company that will help you create professional printed marketing material. Even if you have a decent Photoshop skill, it is better to get help from professionals.

Competition

If one makes use of an easy to use CMS like WordPress, they can get their business website up and running on the Internet in a matter of hours. The number of people with whom you are going to compete with in a trade show is probably way lower compared to businesses on the Internet. Businesses have been spending a lot of money on PPC campaigns and SEO optimization to rank well in search engines. It is quite apparent that, the competition on the Internet is quite stiff.

Connect at a human level

When you are at a venue, you can actually talk to people face-to-face that one can’t do with online marketing. The closest thing one can do is record a video and upload it to the website. Every customer is unique and their requirements vary. When you meet your potential customer in person, you will be able to understand them well as you interact. Most importantly, people will easily trust you when you meet them in person.

Final thoughts

Offline and online marketing are not sworn enemies. One needs to drive all their offline traffic to online website and vice-versa. If you are on Twitter, don’t forget to add a relevant #hashtag to your printed marketing material like flyers and pullup banners, especially when you at the trade show or any kind of offline venue. With a lot of people wielding a smartphone, they are more likely to share what they are up to along with the hash-tag mentioned on your pamphlet.

Now that Facebook also supports hashtags like Twitter, one can leverage the power of both the social media services. You can actually take a look at all the people who are using your hashtag and pay attention to all the people who are sharing and commenting to find more interested people and potential customers. Most of the top digital printing companies are well aware of techniques to collaborate online and offline marketing methods to reach out to a lot of customers. Get in touch with a digital printing company that is near you. If you live in Sydney, you need to find company that specialize in digital printing in Sydney. You shouldn’t even bother considering a printing firm in Canberra even though it just 3 hours away, so that you can meet them or get in touch with them easily.

Kerry Blake is a MS Office expert, trainer and lecturer for past seven years.

As he put it, “Most of my articles are inspired by people I meet in class. You can find me writing about technology and cars when I feel I got something to say.”