The importance of combining both online and
The importance of combining both online and
offline advertising for online businesses
The internet is a huge business and its constant and significant growth attracts more and more businesses to be online. In 2004, online sales reached $117 billion (www.comscore.com with more than 812 million internet users (www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). All these internet users are potential customers and it is essential to exploit such an opportunity.
However promotion is crucial, not only to increase traffic. A basic principle is: if people do not know you, they can not buy anything from you. With the incredible increase in the number of existing websites, it is likely that you may not be noticed. The internet not only gives you the opportunity to sell online, it also enables to advertise online and the advantages are numerous. However, there is a trend to forget offline advertising and its benefits as it is generally more expensive, indeed not affordable, especially for small businesses.
This paper deals with the importance of integrating both online and offline advertising when running an online business in order to run an effective campaign which will generate traffic, sales and increase profits. It first briefly describes what is considered as online and offline advertising and then goes on to discuss the importance of combining the two methods.
Online advertising corresponds to advertising done on the web or through emails. It consists of search engines and directories, banners, pop-up, emails, newsgroups, affiliate programmes, viral marketing and the content of the websites. Some of these elements exist with variations. For instance, banners can be static, animated or interactive; emails can be in the form of a text or a combination of text and animation....
Offline advertising (or traditional advertising) is a diverse arena. In short, I consider offline advertising as communicating through the mass media that is to say TV (local, national...), radio (local, national), print (local, national newspapers, directories, magazines...) outdoors (billboards, bus shelter...) and cinema. These are known as 'above the line' advertising. According to me, direct response1(without the use of the internet off course) could be included in the above definition as it utilises some of the components of mass media.
The primary reason why a company should combine online and offline advertising is because of the general advantages these two methods provide. Online advertising enables to one to target an audience with accuracy, and enables efficient focus on specific segments. With this method, a company can track how the different users interact with a brand and in what they are interested. The different ads on the web can be quickly delivered and are really flexible with few additional costs and is easily accessible anytime. Online advertising also enables interactivity. The users can quickly and easily have information about ...
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The primary reason why a company should combine online and offline advertising is because of the general advantages these two methods provide. Online advertising enables to one to target an audience with accuracy, and enables efficient focus on specific segments. With this method, a company can track how the different users interact with a brand and in what they are interested. The different ads on the web can be quickly delivered and are really flexible with few additional costs and is easily accessible anytime. Online advertising also enables interactivity. The users can quickly and easily have information about the products, its benefits and characteristics, simply by clicking on a link. Finally, this method is quick, inexpensive and sometimes free as in the case of submitting articles to some websites which enables efficient time and resources management.
Offline advertising also provide advantages. It enables to reach a wider customer base. It has the power to inform, educate, persuade, reinforce an image, remind people of a product, a company... What makes it effective is the repetition in the time, wherever people are. Direct response tries to be more interactive, people are able to respond as telephone number or websites are mentioned but it is not always convenient for them to do so due to where they are when they get the information. Even if it can be expensive according to the type of different media used (national TV vs regional TV), offline advertising is still low cost according to the number of people reached. There are inexpensive advertising (such as printing on cars) or even free advertising (such as public announcements on TV, newspapers) however for the last one, your product has to be really innovative. Mass media also has the advantages of being an 'old media', having proved its efficiency. Media such as TV is also considered as a prestige media.
Another reason why integrating those two methods is that they don't have the same impact on the AIDA process. Every marketer knows the AIDA concept about consumer decision-making process which stands for creating Awareness, Interest, Desire and finally Action. Each one leads to the other (there is a flow from being unaware to being aware, then followed by an interest in...). The aim of communication is to make the potential customers move through these four steps thus resulting in the purchase of the product or service in a shorter time period. The two methods achieve this goal but not with the same effectiveness.
In terms of creating awareness, offline advertising is more effective than online advertising. Creating awareness consists of catching people's attention without any intention from their part. It is easier to do with traditional advertising as they are present everywhere in the people's environment. With online communication, initially people only see the advertising in the specific environment of the internet and then they may not notice it as they pay attention to something else or are bothered with it. For instance, there is a tendency to skip banners and to close pop up.
Creating interest is the next stage. When people are aware of your existence, you can generate interest with the different products you sell. If a previous market segmentation has been done correctly, the targeted people will be interested. At this stage, online advertising is much more efficient as it is more personalised, one to one marketing than the mass media and potential customers can get information quickly on what they could gain from the products by clicking on a link. People can feel interest in products with mass media as well as the main benefits of the products are mentioned in the ad, however they can quickly lose it if they do not find more information rapidly, which can happen often as offline advertising are everywhere. People are not always at the right place at the right moment.
The next step is to create desire. The level of desire created depends on people's perception of the products, and their emotions. People do not always buy rationally but emotionally. It is easier to 'play' with people's perception with traditional media as they can use sensory effects. For instance, with TV ads, people are exposed to the sounds and the images resulting in a positive or negative feeling. However, now online advertising has the capacity to integrate multimedia technologies, which leads both methods to have nearly the same advantage, the difference lying in the time to download files with online advertising.
The last step is the action, that is to say the purchasing act. Online advertising allows immediacy. People meet fewer obstacles on the internet than in the real world. They are just a few clicks from purchasing a product/service as they are already on the internet. In the real world, people see advertising everywhere and are not always at the best place to buy the products on the internet.
This leads to the conclusion that mass media advertising is a good method to create awareness and desire. Online advertising has the advantage of generating interest and action. Both methods are therefore complementary to each other.
A final reason to combine both methods is because of people's behaviour. More and more people are using the internet as stated in the introduction, which place them in the position of being potential customers. The use of broadband is also increasing, which means faster connection, easy access to information. No matter why people go on the internet: communication, information, leisure... you need to use online advertising to show internet users that you exist, to enable them to access easily with one click to your website, to reach the proportion of your target which uses the internet as a primary tool. As online advertising is a tool which targets a more precise than mass media, there is more chances to directly get in touch with the interested customers. This is in favour of the online promotion.
However, people are not all internet addicts and most of them still spend time outside, or in front of the TV, or listening to radio. It is important to target those people who could be nevertheless interested, internet users but not internet addicts. Mass media can attract part of a segment market not reached by online advertising
The use of the two methods enables a company to target a specific segment which is its primary group (the main target group) and secondary group (the periphery of the main target group).
In conclusion, combining online and offline advertising have a lot of advantages. A company stands a better chance in achieving its goal as each method has its own strengths and a company should focus on how to use them the most effectively. The two methods have weaknesses as well but as they are complementary, the weaknesses of one method could be offset by the strengths of the other in the decision-making process. Finally the integration of the two methods enables a wider approach as well as reaching and attracting potential customers you might otherwise not consider. A last point to underline is however that there must be coherence in the way the two methods are used in order to be perfectly effective.
References and bibliography
Websites
* http://advertising.about.com/library/weekly/aa111300a.htm
* http://searchwarp.com/swa2942.htm
* www.activemarketplace.com/promote/useoffline_methods.html
* www.ahbbo.com/offline.html
* www.ciadvertising.org/studies/reports/info_process/99AAACHO.html
* www.clickz.com/experts/archives/mkt/onl_mkt_comm/article.php/840031
* www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=546
* www.drnunley.com/ARTCL35.htm
* www.go-fx.com/article_advertisingmarketing_08.htm
* www.gnuworld.com/offlineads
* www.iboost.com/promote/marketing/visitor_retention/00431.htm
* www.internetnewsbureau.com/medianet/fourFive.html
* www.internetworldstats.com/articles/art042.htm
* www.internetworldstats.com/articles/art044.htm
* www.leveltendesign.com/kb/articles/blending_online_offline_promotions.php
* www.paynetsystems.com/blog/2004/12/offline-advertising-strategies.html
* www.successfuloffice.com/dont-forget-about-offline-advertising.htm
* www.thinkmetrics.com/comparing-online-and-offline-marketing.php
* www.webpronews.com/ebusiness/smallbusiness/wpn-2-20021226OnlinevsOfflineAdvertising.html
Book
* Wright, R. (2003) The Ultimate Dictionary of Business and Marketing, London, Earlybrave Publications Ltd
Direct-Response Advertising - talking directly to the customers by TV, radio, mail, the internet, telephone and inviting a response (Wright, R. (2003) The Ultimate Dictionary of Business and Marketing.
