Online versus offline branding
17/06/2008 send to a friend
Making the most of having a new contributor in the Enterprise Nation fold, in the form of Leon Bailey Green, we ask our marketing man a question: ‘When marketing an online brand, should all marketing stay online?’ This is his response.
Subject: Online branding
From: Leon Bailey Green
One of the greatest things about online marketing is that people can engage with you immediately after being exposed to your brand message.
Whether it's clicking on a result in Google or a banner advert, or reading about a brand on a website and clicking through, the exposure to the website and brand is immediate.
For online brands, getting people onto the website is the key first step to a desired user journey, whether it's to buy products, register details or engage within a community.
However, that's not to totally dismiss offline marketing for internet brands.
Offline marketing for web brands works very well in areas that are extremely competitive – in particular, the finance sector.
Insurance companies and mortgage brokers spend huge amounts of their budget on paid search. To maximise that spend, they try and build brand awareness offline, so when a user sees their advert they are familiar with the brand. This leads to an increase in people clicking on the adverts, because they are familiar with the brand.
What do you think? Should online home business brands stay online? Post your comments here, or in the forum.
Add a comment
* Denotes a mandatory fieldWhat's Related
- Worried about the downturn? Try the direct approach…
- Yell.com reveals UK’s ‘spooktacular’ business names
- K is for Kinesics
- Introducing you to Moo
- Iceberg Ahead!
- Leading the way
- Get yourself noticed at top internet event
- Looking good
- Our guest for the day: Rachel Bridge
- To Boldly Go - a guide to better business writing
Spare Room Start Up
Order our first book, Spare Room Start Up: How to start a business from home and save 35%! Join Emma on her book signing tour or find out what people are saying about the book.
Latest from the Forum
-
19/11/2008 by | Introduce yourselves :)
-
19/11/2008 by | What's your story?
-
19/11/2008 by | how to take credit cards for invoice payments?
Comments
Author: dee blick
Date: 17/06/2008
Comment:
Good debate!
I run many campaigns where the fundamental marketing tool is the website and strong online presence, but I develop offline campaigns to drive traffic to the site. Not every small business can afford extensive online optimisation and it is not always suitable - if the target audiences are not searching online for the business then they have to be reached offline. I just ran a campaign to promote a brand - and drive in this case, motor dealers on to the website. We got a 15% response and I am now running low cost (price of a stamp and a bit of creative flair plus a response trigger) campaigns on a monthly basis to plug the site. Most small businesses need these low cost options to up their traffic online.
I believe in small businesses trying a range of channels to promote their online presence and in boosting online awareness through great content that gets google excited! I also think that in a lot of cases, the brand is built through tangible offline assets so people can engage more intimately (media/direct mail/leaflets) although for the generation y (my kids) they would dismiss this theory in favour of their online social networking!!
So in summary, online is in many cases dependant on offline feeding and for many small businesses unless their niche product has people foraging for them on the web, they need to drive their key target audiences via offline communications. Most of the big companies do this as well. It is interesting to see the shift from the old messages of 'give us a call or write to us 'and now it is 'go onto our site'. Direct Line are a good example - remember when it was just the phone and now the mouse is more dominant and we know about this through the media and advertising. I shan't even get into the viral debate - enough for one discussion!!
Website: www.themarketinggym.org
Author: Emma Jones
Date: 19/06/2008
Comment: Following on from this, there is an interesting feature on 'How to use offline advertising in Internet marketing' here
http://www.myfashionemallblog.net/how-to-use-offline-advertising-in-internet-marketing/
Website: www.enterprisenation.com
Author: Jason Conway
Date: 19/06/2008
Comment: As a creative professional I deal with many small businesses that market themselves both on and offline.
Many start ups don't have the budget in place to promote their business adequately online. And furthermore most have very little or no knowledge about online promotion. For these, direct mail tends to be their first route via flyers and leaflets which may or may not have their website listed, if indeed they have a website in the first instance.
For larger businesses online promotion is a much greater concern where a good percentage of their marketing budget is spent getting their brand 'out there' on the web.
If a web company didn't use offline or traditional promotion methods, they would be missing out on a whole lot of potential business.
For those of us that work from home we have to use both to attract new business. Networking online is a great way to promote yourself and your services. Sites like Ecademy are very useful and very inexpensive to join. We also have to get out and meet people face to face at networking events, as word of mouth business, can be a very powerful tool.
In the end if you are a small business and a home worker, you need to set aside regular time each week for online promotion. Building a brand takes time, effort and cost, so its important to seek advice from experts, to have a marketing plan, and a reasonable budget in place.
Website: www.ideo-sync.co.uk