Combining Online & Offline mediums for massive success

4 replies
Offliners... there's a big world of marketing out there aside from just straight-up online marketing. One of the most effective campaign methods is to help your clients integrate various forms of offline marketing vehicles, driving an individual in their target market to an online destination.

Combined marketing mediums are not new. Think about the early forms of TV offers, combining a commercial with an inbound call center.

Even two mediums of print, like a classified ad offering a free catalog.

In the much earlier days of the internet (1997 I think we started this), I started doing millions of direct mail pieces with my very large, direct print marketing partner, where every 6 weeks, we would literally drop hundreds of thousands of coupon "mailbox shopper" magazines to every household in roughly 25 key markets around the US. I think the smallest drop was 600,000 units, which were always printed and shipped in around 3 days after the presses started. A big operation. Once the truck started running to the post office, we'd start watching the site metrics to see the dial spin. This was in the early days long before Google Analytics made things easy for us, so we had to do a lot of manual statistical analysis. We got to the point where we could predict traffic to a site based on an ad, how long it took for traffic to peak, and how long the traffic would sustain itself based on the single action.

It generated literally millions of unique visits to our targeted websites, and was a smashing success.

There's a gigantic world of marketing out there beyond even just internet marketing as a standalone activity, and combining mediums will blow the top off of your performance.
#combining #massive #mediums #offline #online #success
  • Profile picture of the author jasonl70
    I second this - using traditional off line marketing (direct mail, tv, etc) to drive traffic to a website has worked very well for one of my offline clients (car dealer). I've done a little direct mail -to- website campaigns for myself with nice results.

    I think Michael has shown some great insights since he's joined up here - at the end of the day it's about MARKETING, and the web is another medium that can be harnessed as part of a larger marketing approach.
    Signature

    -Jason

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    • Profile picture of the author MacFreddie
      Banned
      Originally Posted by jasonl70 View Post

      I second this - using traditional off line marketing (direct mail, tv, etc) to drive traffic to a website has worked very well for one of my offline clients (car dealer). I've done a little direct mail -to- website campaigns for myself with nice results.

      I think Michael has shown some great insights since he's joined up here - at the end of the day it's about MARKETING, and the web is another medium that can be harnessed as part of a larger marketing approach.
      That's what I have been SCREAMING here for over 2 years now. IMers just don't get "IT."

      I think it's because most IMers are under 30 and really have no idea about Offline and how it works. Most Kids today only know the Internet, Macbooks, IPods, IPhones, Smartphones, Instant Messaging, etc...

      Clueless in my honest opinion.

      Mac
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  • Profile picture of the author Glenn Leader
    Thank you Michael, your posts are one of the very few I read word
    for word, and often twice over because more often than not, your
    comments are like little nuggets of gold.

    Glenn
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  • Profile picture of the author DukeNasty
    Very true indeed. Here is the problem though. Most small businesses have a pure "brochure" site and fail miserably at lead generation no matter what the medium. A logical next step to what Michael has pointed out, is helping small businesses develop relevant content (website, blog, video, social media, etc.), landing pages for specific efforts, and tracking mechanisms to continually refine your efforts, that turns the visitors that come from the massive outbound marketing effort into leads and then finally into sales.

    The key that I see is really understanding how your client's business operates. There are a million internet marketing SEO guys out there who can drive traffic, but traffic is useless if it doesn't convert and make your client more money. Once you have the ability to integrate a comprehensive marketing program for your client that gets results, you then move out of linoleumville and up into the marketing stratosphere!

    E.
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