The Offline Marketer's Bag of Tricks
Those who do online marketing may be unaware of the "bag of tricks" that traditional (offline) marketers have been using for ages. But when it comes to business, the two are working toward the same end: whether a customer is acquired online or offline, they remain a customer.
Different Starting Points
Online marketers experience differs from offline, in that customers come to them (i.e., they are handling inbound calls from interested prospects rather than cold-calling rubes in hopes of getting a sale).
When advertising took place on the Web, its implementation presumed interest: people who want to purchase this product are out there, we just have to let them know we exist. What's more, the task of getting users to come to the site is generally handled by a different group than those who handle them once they land.
Offline marketers, particularly those in sales, are well aware that it's more productive to "work" your existing customers into buying, then work the hot leads (individuals who are likely to be interested), before finally cold-calling to drum up business.
The offline marketer starts earlier: to justify the cost of a campaign, he must do predictive analysis (to show how many leads he expects to get); he has a longer cycle and spends a great deal more time creating awareness; he moves a lot more methodically (testing before pulling the trigger).
Online marketers generally do all of this in arrears - since the cost of advertising online is low, they run the campaign, crunch the numbers afterward, and decide whether it's worth repeating (or try a different approach next time)
Much of this is related to the cost of advertising: the wider net you cast, the more expensive the ad, and the less likely you are to recoup the costs. The concept of "target marketing" was a test of a small sample to determine the qualities (gender, age, occupation, location, etc.) that made an unknown prospect likely to buy, then whittling down the marketing campaign to focus on profitable sectors.
As the Internet evolves, and advertising becomes more expensive (EN: this is presumed), online marketers may need to borrow on this bag of tricks. But even now, borrowing upon these techniques can focus online marketing efforts to pitch to the most receptive audience, those most likely to become long-term customers of a company, rather than risk a broader campaign that may draw in many one-time buyers, but alienate the potential "gold" customers.
Shrinking Differences
Over time, the difference between offline and online marketers is decreasing, as some of the challenges familiar to old-school marketers are now beginning to evidence themselves in the new media:
- Saturation - The number of sites has increased exponentially, so it is less the case that a new site attracts a large audience, or that it will be the only vendor in its category.
- Inundation - Advertising does not often get the attention it once did: software to "block" advertising e-mail (spam, pop-ups, and even banners) from getting to users at all, and users are accustomed to ignoring ads without reading them
- Cost-Per-Click - The major ad networks are now priced at a cost per click rather than per exposure, making it more expensive to acquire new customers
- Price Competition - Most retailers offer identical goods online, an users compare prices among multiple sites, making it difficult to generate revenue from a proportion
- Loss-Leader Adoption - The tactic of selling one product at a loss to make a profit on others bought by the same shopper doesn't work online: people tend to buy the loss leader, but nothing else.
In the end, acquiring a new customer online is difficult - and in many cases, you have to take a loss on the first sale in order to turn a profit when (and if) these new customers become regular customers.
It's a bigger risk than some companies are comfortable taking on, so online marketers will have to turn to some of the tricks of offline ones in order to better focus their marketing efforts on users who are likely to respond.