Online marketing, how much does it differ from offline?

offline and online have the same principles and concepts, but they differ a lot with cost and the method of delivery.

Not the only difference but one of the biggest.....in my opinion is: TRUST.
Online I don't really trust anyone....very few at least. Your working with too many "unknowns" & it takes a long time to gain a level of trust online...
Offline you tend to deal in person, face to face...with people who might live in your neighborhhood or that you went through school with. Trust levels are higher...

On another level of trust...people still do not trust the Internet. It's getting better year by year by there are still many who will not bank, shop, tweet or do anything online beyond checking their email...all because they simply do not trust it...

Good luck,
Ken

Most of the professors might have deep roots in interruption advertising as opposed to 'joining the conversation' type advertising that works better on line.
It's sort of like many who have made millions on Madison ave would look around here like a deer in the headlights. In many ways having spent time here will give you a leg up in the real world, but may prove a hindrance when test time comes. Lol.

Hehe, lucky for me its a no test course, the final year will consist of some sort of project which we will work as a team to complete, no idea what it is. More oppinions please this is helping a lot.

Online is even more noisy than offline. Offline marketing is
noisy but in many media there is a cost-of-entry barrier
that keeps the spammers and incompetents out of the
mix. Online it's a free-for-all and often a shouting match.

The principles of branding are the same but the methods
are different. Offline branding tends to run to extravagant
spending while online smart and clever marketers can do
well with not much money as long as their target is smallish -
due to the fragmentation of markets and the new "communities"
that simply weren't possible before (and only anticipated by
things like 'zines before the 1990s).

We're in a time off sub-cultural fragmentation. Subcultures,
ie. "Steampunk, Gothic Lolita" that are too marginal and diffuse
for any form of traditional marketing to target are now reachable
via online gathering spots.

When you're talking about "Coke" and "Toyota" I think it's pretty
much all the same. When you're talking about direct response
and targeting of niche markets that were non-existant and/or
(profitably) unreachable prior to the internet, you're talking
about a BIG difference.

Dogscout's comments are spot-on as well.

Online marketing has changed the game so much. Take a look at "bum marketing", the concept being that you could take a "bum" from the street and get him or her earning money without having to invest any.

Online marketing has gotten people to feel like something that use to require a lot of seed money is now something people can "dab" in.

Mediums like Facebook can be crazy powerful if you know how to leverage them.

I started my education on the online side of things, and as I moved forward I began to see a lot of online principles being taken from offline ones.

In terms of my own personal efforts in offline advertising (I am not talking about helping offline local businesses, but doing traditional advertising such as selling my own products and such) I have found it to be intimidating. I miss the ability to instantly track what I do. I don't like the mystery and financial committment that many types of methods require. That's just me though!

In terms of helping local businesses, I have found them loving the things we can do with online advertising. Being able to track how people are getting to their website blows their mind. And yet this is something we all take for granted!

Matt

I personally feel like online marketing is simple than Offline. In online marketing, you do every things from single place, learn things, discuss with people, innovate and implement some new strategies, in a single place.

But when it comes to offline, it needs lot of efforts and it takes longer time for every new thing to be implemented.

Personally, I think that online marketing is the same that offline.

And I think that people who were involved in offline business succeed faster because they already know how to run a business.

The only thing is that online marketing is more dangerous...

Let me explain. I had a pizza (domimo style) business, and it was running like 75% on autopilot, and I was making very nice profits.

But.. I don't know why I thought that I should be a one man show online... I ended working even more than when I was a pizzeria owner.

Bottom line, take this as a real business and you'll do fine.

Franck

With many years offline, i thought it would be easy to transfer my offline work on line. That for me was a big mistake and a huge learning curve, I was very wrong to think i could walk in off the street to this virtual world.

Some big differences for me are, peoples attitude and professionalism on line, customer service in many areas is non existent and or an attitude of you cant see me so i do not care about service.

Second is on line many people seem to be able to pin badges on self inflated chests, naming them selves as some expert or master or any other variation, however the more you learn the more crap you uncover.

In many ways dealing offline is a lot easier ( for those who have done it for a long time ), How ever with all of that I also see many good people on line and it is a great resource / medium to do business once it is understood and I do have a long way to go for sure, this forum for one shines a light and is a pleasure to visit and be a part of so many talented IM people.

Online, it's easy/cheap/fast to test, to get nearly instant results of what you try. So much of successful online marketing is tweaking. In general the speed of online marketing is faster - faster results, faster changes, faster to take advantage of good testing, faster money.

Another thing is scaling up - the price of scaling up offline is much larger than online. Going from ten to a million physical marketing letters is expensive - going from ten to a million emails is not nearly as much of a difference.

Back in my offline days this kind of thing (speed and testing) was looked down on - I was much happier doing direct mail, but my ad agency co-workers considered that I'd taken a huge step downwards, career-wise. Ad agency work was more about impressing the client, not so much getting results. The money comes from the client! There was something dirty about actually dealing with the nuts and bolts of selling things - "real" marketing was about theory.

Just a few of my own observations. From online to offline - well, there are many different types of both. I would assume that university is "the big picture", managemen versus actually doing things yourself. If your experience is doing your own online sales, then it will be a big change in the way you think.

Best - Pat

offline: people
online: email/website

And as I'm finding out more and more, many businesses don't know a lot about marketing in general. Things that we take for granted, they have no idea about. This makes our role even more important

Matt

Online is just a distinction in the tool set.

That's it.

Everything else remains the same.

All the hubub over online marketing is really a lot of noise perpetrated by so many "johnny come lately" marketing "experts" that stamp themselves with this label because most offline business folks don't know the difference, and it's usually too late after the fact.

Online marketing, with all it's grandeur, serves a single purpose... to generate a lead. It's just different tool sets to accomplish the same thing that has been done since Adam Smith wrote about free markets.

There's nothing magical about it. It's just a venue of communication. And the complexity of some of the aspects of this venue have created some TEMPORARY opportunities for some people.

But over the long haul, the professionals that find themselves in sustainable positions aren't the tricks and techniques folks. The people that will still be around in 20 years are the folks that understand marketing fundamentals and foundations at the strategic level, not the extemporaneous, tactical level that will be completely different in 10 years.

Don't think it will? Was online marketing the same 10 years ago?

How about those banner ads and link exchanges?

Nobody at any strategic level of business really gives a hoot about SEO's latest gyration outside of the fact that it's just a way to get traffic to a website. One way among many. And that website better have some capacity for capturing some lead information. After that? It's all up to the business to do what it has always done. Sell that customer, deliver some product or service in an exceptional way, and keep that customer.

There are a whole bunch of marketing dreamers that will eventually find themselves out in the cold because they tried to build a career on a front-end technique or tactic - only to have things shift again, and not actually have the hardcore, deep fundamentals to understand the distinction between the tactical and the strategic.

Strategic transcends the tool set.

What's the very best marketing of all?

The one that consistently brings the most profitable customer with the longest life expectancy at the lowest cost of acquisition - and that is specific to each and every business on the planet.

Case in point. Why should a software company that does 100% of it's business with government agencies as a result of being on the federal GSA schedule invest a single cent in social media?

It shouldn't.