Potential customers will always look you up online after receiving a marketing message from you. For starters, it helps them to legitimize your business. They might see your TV ad and it will prompt them to search online to see what you are really about.
When combining online and offline strategies, it’s proven that you will generate more leads and have a higher and faster response rate.
One successful strategy is to use offline media to direct customers to respond online. Customers love the look and feel of a nice direct mail piece, but they want a quick and easy way to respond. This is where online marketing comes into play. Use the offline direct mail marketing piece to send customers to your company’s website, social media outlet or a special landing page. According to PODI.org, 42 percent of direct mail recipients prefer to respond online and 25 percent of direct mail recipients will only respond online.
Some would argue, well, if they are looking for us online, then we should only be online. While we understand the thought process behind this, there are always two sides to an argument. Yes, it makes sense to be online if customers are looking for you online, but how will they know to look for you if they haven’t heard of you before? And how will they hear about you if you are only online? People still watch TV, listen to the radio and read the newspaper. And people still get excited to get real mail in their mailbox.
Gone are the days of driving down Main Street, USA, saying “That store looks nice; I think I’ll shop there!” Shopping has turned into a four-step process:
- Online search
- Seeing/hearing your marketing message
- Researching/looking you up online and comparing you to other stores
- Visiting your store
The best thing for your business to do is hit both offline and online strategies. By using offline media to direct customers online, you are allowing the consumer to shop the way they want to shop.
