E-Tail Marketing Tactics #1: Online-Offline Promotion
Many people go into the online business thinking it all happens online. They open an e-store thinking that, at any given moment, there are millions of people online and it's merely a matter of targeting some of them and getting them to buy. Unfortunately, that's only half the story --and only half the market. Sure, at any given moment there ARE millions of people online, but at that very same moment there are millions of people who AREN'T online. What are you doing to target them?
Believe it or not, most people do not live their lives on the Internet. I know it hurts to hear that, but it's true. At any given time during the day, most people are doing something else. They're NOT online. Many of us who run businesses online, or spend a lot of time online, tend to Internetize things, we tend to think the entire world centers around the Internet and the online world, and that can sometimes affect our marketing. We're so busy marketing to the online world, that we forget to market to the offline world -- which, in many cases, is the world that actually uses what we're selling!
It's a matter of knowing your market and a matter of including online and offline promotion into your e-store's marketing plan. Depending on your market, and what you sell, you may want to invest heavier in one than the other. It's rarely a balance between the two.
Imagine if you sold surfboards online. Sure, a lot of surfers use the Internet, but at any given moment, most die-hard surfers are probably doing something surfing-related that doesn't have anything to do with the 'net. If they're not doing that, they're probably working, or eating, or doing other things that people do when they're not online. It's safe to say they probably don't spend 24 hours a day online, and given the choice between being online and surfing, they'd probably go surfing.
That said, where would be the best place to market your surfing e-store? Online? Google Adwords? Yahoo? A surfing website? Or Offline? How about one of those signs along the pier where everyone surfs? How about handing out flyers to the surfers themselves? How about the bulletin board at the local surfer hangout? What about a booth at the next big surfing event?
The answer is: ALL OF THEM!
You don't want to put all of your marketing eggs in one basket. If you focus your marketing efforts entirely on marketing online, you're missing out on the broader market -- the entire world of people who AREN'T online at any given moment. And vice versa; if you market solely offline, you're missing out on the targeted percentage of folks who are online AND interested in what you're selling.
The key is to look beyond the Internet and ALWAYS, without exception, include both online and offline marketing into your e-store's overall marketing plan. Over time, testing and tracking your marketing results, you'll discover where most of your business originates from, and you can adjust your marketing plan accordingly -- maybe investing more heavily in one than the other, but never neglecting either.
Questions and Answers
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