Online vs Offline

I just passed my first anniversary at the station. I started there on August first, a year ago. My how time flies when you're having fun!

In recent months I have been returning to online activities slowly. I've been noticing the difference between successful online businesses and those offline, running equally successful brick and mortar operations.

Now of course, this is a generalization based on experiences in Whitecourt over a year and online life over the past 11 years.

Successful online business owners plan. This hasn't been as true offline. Most have a general idea of what they'd like to do, but do not have the same overall system of operations that helps successful online business owners enjoy repeated success in multiple categories.

All successful online marketers know about targeting. Not all successful offline businesses take advantage of the power of targeting. Most business owners around here tend to feel they have enough business without applying techniques like targeting to a specific target market. Those that want to expand their business tend to think target marketing will leave money on the table with customers outside their target market. It’s difficult to convince them of the truth that so many online marketers have discovered, that people love buying products they feel are tailor made for them.

All successful online marketers know about good copywriting and how important it is to the sales process. At the very least they know how to hire the people that specialize in getting a positive response. Most of my local clients aren’t aware of including a single strong call to action with their sales message.

This leads straight into two other things that successful online businesses do more effectively, outsourcing and delegating. Online marketers seem much more willing to invest in hiring outside specialists rather than doing all of the work themselves. Even when doing the work themselves, online marketers tend to search out resources to guide their efforts. I haven’t noticed this among most offline business owners.

Nor have I met a large number of offline business owners who are engaged in any sort of tracking system, beyond comparing end of day receipts. Online marketers tend to be more involved with analyzing where business is coming from and what techniques bring the best results for their efforts. Overall, there is much more emphasis on return on investment in the online business community.

Online owners tend to be more integrated in their approach to marketing their business. Whether this is an effect of planning is hard to say, but there is definitely more focus to successful online campaigns with a broader range of tools used. A successful online marketer will seldom use only one method to deliver their sales message. Offline it’s common for advertisers to use only one channel to deliver the message without enough repetition to spur the consumer to action. Online marketers know that the ability of a sales message to create action is dependent upon the number of times the consumer is presented with the sales message and know it must either come through rapid repetition or be built over time.

This is not to say that offline business owners are less savvy than their online counterparts. This is just an observation of the differences.

Offline business has some inherent marketing advantages simply by being a brick and mortar business. These include signage, customer service, along with referral and buzz marketing. They also more readily avail themselves to traditional media like print, direct mail and radio advertising.

I believe they’d want to know all this information about the additional power of planning, targeting and so on, if there was a compelling need for it. Few of us look for solutions when there don’t appear to be problems and most offline businesses can survive and even thrive if they’ve got the right product for their local market.

What does this all mean?

I’m not exactly sure, except that it would be really interesting to watch on offline business adapt online practices to a local campaign. I think the results would be exciting and inspiring.

I think the future of marketing will be to adapt the best marketing solutions from both new media and traditional media.

After all the primary purpose of marketing has always been and will always remain how to get your sales message to a target market who is most likely to respond.

What do you think?

Have you see the same differences in your experience? Do you think offline businesses can benefit from online strengths? Are there sites out there that already capitalize on these observations?

Please feel free to share your comments below.

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Hey! That's Right!

In reading on my regular forums lately, there were several conversations about blogs. Most of my business forum friends have blogs and so do so many of my writer list friends. There are fewer blogs among my parenting friends, but there are still a few. Then it dawned on me. I have a blog too.

I want a blog I can invite all my friends to.

I named this blog "I am not Herb"

At the time, I just meant that I wasn't a sleazy, poorly dressed buffoon. I mean the guy was cute as a caricature, but not a very pleasant character.

As I read through the conversations, not contributing much because most of my writing here has been fairly irrelevant to most of my friends. There are a few that might get something from what I've written so far - but not many.

And that's when I realized that "I am not Herb" should be about more than being a radio girl. Because I am much more than that.

I am not just a radio girl. In fact, radio is not my first priority.

I don't want this blog to be about radio because it should be about me and what it means to not be Herb. That encompasses much more than just just the sales side of things.

After all, there's much more to life than sales. Not to say that sales aren't wonderful, but the fact is I'm living my dream whether I achieve financial success or not. So why have a blog that's all business?

Sometimes it's not about drawing in the right target market to sell your products or attracting publicity to your latest launch, sometimes it's about hanging out with friends and sharing the latest "kids will love it" recipe.

So My Name is Herb will be changing...and new material will be much easier to write!

The One Money Saving Marketing Technique You Need

Want to know the one thing that will cost you nothing but time and net you a return of almost 40% off some of your marketing costs?

It’s really quite simple and I bet you’ll be kicking yourself for not thinking of this one yourself.

Ready?

It’s a plan.

Yup, all you need to save up to 40% on some of your marketing costs is a plan.

If you know how are you going to market this coming year, you can save money on most of your direct and indirect marketing costs. Once you figure that out you can start making contact with potential advertising sites, start coming up with press releases and in general get your marketing campaign underway.

Breaking it into grocery store terms it’s like buying bulk versus per use sizes, you end up paying for convenience.

Advertising With a Plan vs. Seat-of-the-PantsBuying Habits

I thought it best to illustrate it with a comparison...

Store X comes up with a yearly marketing plan. They use it to roughly sketch in dates for print advertising in the newspaper, public relations events, outlines for their in-house customer appreciation lists.

Store Y makes do with buying when the newspaper lady drops by or calls with special offers and doesn’t do much to contact customers outside of flyers and in store displays.

Store X takes advantage of lower overall pricing and can integrate several branches of their marketing plan at the same time. He's also able to plan around co-op marketing dollars that some of his manafacturers offer and commit the savings to personal branding efforts.

In order to do the same Store Y will have to bring together each of his marketing branches within a short period of time, resulting in a possibly lower newspaper invoice coupled with higher prices for rush advertising at his printers and web developer. Due to his lack of planning, he often misses out on coop dollars by not gettings his ads and proofs to the manafacturer by the appropriate deadlines.

Store X can get all of his printing needs for the year met within one visit during a slow time in the printing industry and will be able to take advantage of seasonal discounts. The same holds true for his web development work and public relations.

Buying in advance helps Store X resist sales offers that don’t fit in to the overall marketing plan, whereas Store Y can often be tempted by time-specials that may not fit his overall target market.

Store X overall spends less time deliberating decisions and more time executing decisions.

Who would you rather be?

I’ll be uploading my Business Basics Guide to Planning over the next few days. If you want to learn how to build a business plan sturdy enough to support your marketing, but simple enough to develop in a week – then stay tuned to the Easy Results with Radio launch list. Members of the list get first dibs at extra sweet pricing.

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Rejection brings clarity to my mission statement

I was in a negotiation today, hoping to secure a client as a test for a podcast experiment. However, it just wasn’t quite the right fit. The potential clients’ interests were more in guerilla marketing techniques rather than paid opportunities. I personally believe that guerilla tactics should be mixed with sound and deliberate paid advertising.

I got the feeling I lost the sale because I wasn't clear in clarifying my intentions with this potential client. I have a feeling he thought I was just after the sale. I was after the sale, but not for alltogether selfish reasons. Yes, I'd make a commission - but I'd make nothing if the experiment failed. I think that's as much of a guarantee as anyone should be expected to make.

Anyway, it really got me to thinking about what I want to accomplish through this business.

I want to make sales, for sure. But I'm not going to knowingly steer anyone in the wrong direction. I don't believe in a one-size-fits-all brand of marketing. No one method is superior in all ways for all markets.

It's a natural assumption that as someone who sells advertising, I’m not of the mindset that paid advertising is something to avoid. On the other hand, I do generally advise caution and study before jumping into something new.

Advertising is something you need to learn how to harness. Advertising exists because good advertising works, and when backed by a great product – it’s a winning combination for a successful business.

My main focus is not on what works in general, but on what will work for your particular situation. In most situations, both paid advertising and guerilla tactics should be combined for the best return on investment.

Publicity, for example, is an outstanding guerilla tactic. However, I don’t believe it should be attempted as the sole marketing technique employed.

Whether you mix your publicity up with direct mail or email marketing or any other paid form of advertising – you should always have a mix of complimentary marketing methods in play at any given time.

In order for there to be a return of investment there has to be an investment. Whether it’s in the form of pay-per-click or affiliate commissions or any of the multitudes of advertising choices available, there is usually some form of advertising investment that is inherent to the running of a successful business.

Quality outsourcing is another key to a successful business. I think that is an essential to outsource and automate appropriate tasks so that you can concentrate on providing top quality goods and customer service. In the end, that is what creates returning customers.

I believe that bringing new customers in should only be the beginning of your marketing efforts. Treat prospective customers well, but treat your paying customers like gold. Because they are!

Across the board you will find this to be true – satisfied customers hold the biggest impact on our bottom lines.

Satisfied customers are the absolutely best guerilla tactic in the world. Most marketers would agree that testimonials make the best advertising copy!

Marketing is a circular process that can be largely automated so that you can largely set it and forget it. Not only that, if you can commit to planning for a year at a time, you can save up to 40% in some of your marketing costs.

Stay tuned to this blog for more on:

Money Saving Marketing Techniques

Using Audio Advertising to boost your market share

Creativity and the Captive Audience

Increasing your publicity returns with advertising

Outsourcing and the Bottom Line