With the dawn of the digital era, we have all changed the way we do business. Seeking customers can be done through emails and social media, while in the past, we valued person-to-person marketing more. But communication is changing.
Social media facilitate the users to interact with each other regardless time and space limitation. If one user updates a status right now, it will be forever there until he/she decides to erase it. And imagine if the update has anything to do with your company’s brand. Modifying company’s representation on the Internet has become more vital than ever.
But when it deals with digital marketing, most companies tend to undermine the importance of doing things the old way. Online representation might seem appealing in at first glance, but once the customer checks the company for himself and finds out that there is no physical affirmation to the image he/she has seen, all the cyber brand-images become useless.
Offline Marketing
Physical stores, printed brochures, and human representatives add up to the customer’s trust over the company. And at some points, they are irreplaceable. Let us imagine a digital apparel store. And all of its marketing resources are spent on building and maintaining cyber sales leads. Once a client makes a purchase, the store sends the item, and one transaction is done. That may seem like an okay business. Now ask yourself if that is already the ideal form of the industry, or can you improve it more?
Now, we take the same example, but in this case, the apparel store has decided to incorporate offline marketing strategies. By working with professional printing companies the apparel tries to improve its branding by giving stickers with unique designs to whoever purchases an item in the store. The bag and wrapping of the clothes are also designed to be reusable. Won’t it be better for the company’s branding?
In today’s case, offline marketing strategies have transformed into new forms. And if you have no idea about them, you should adjust your understanding of what offline marketing means.
Online Marketing
Online/digital marketing takes various forms. And not all of them are suitable in all contexts. For example, global SEO might be too much for a startup with local market specialization. Geo-tagging and precise location search for a worldwide shipping company are also unnecessary features. Online marketing strategies must be efficient and accurate. Otherwise, they will waste the company’s budget for nothing.
Besides SEO, customer response must be included as a marketing factor. If you represent your company online, the first thing your potential clients are looking for is your availability to answer all of their inquiries. If you have lousy customer service, then no matter how attractive your digital ads are, no clients will come at you.
Conclusion
Both digital and offline marketing strategies must complement each other. It will be a tactical loss if a company omits one or the other. But each plan has its context, and you need to study them comprehensively before trying to put them into practice.…