When was the last time you did offline marketing? 

Offline marketing isn’t very fashionable at the moment. Everyone’s so excited about social media and SEO that real-world marketing has been trampled underfoot in the rush.

But a recent iProspect survey highlights the value of offline marketing. 

Apparently almost 40% of online searchers make a purchase after being influenced by offline media campaigns. That’s stuff like television adverts, local and national newspapers, free papers, magazine ads, the trade press, radio, posters, billboards, brochures, fliers, leaflets, postcards, promotions, advertorials, point of sale materials, catalogues and direct mail.

Here’s what influenced searchers most:

• TV ad 44%
• word of mouth 41%
• newspaper or magazine ad 35%
• radio 23%
• billboard ad or poster 13% 

So there’s still a clear business case for integrated marketing across multiple media, online and offline. Some things don’t change.

Say all you can afford is a tiny direct mail campaign. Provided it’s targeted as tightly as a gnat’s chuff, and well considered, it should have a positive impact on sales. And you’ll also benefit from the sum of your exposure and brand equity being larger than the constituent parts. Which is exactly what integrated marketing is all about.

Go forth and integrate!  

I found this piece heading up an online emarketing newsletter back in ’08. Holy shmoley. Having been in direct marketing for almost twenty years,  was astonished.

These two direct marketing fundamentals are only ‘major developments’ in the sense that online marketers have been so slow to discover them. Good direct marketers have been integrating campaigns across multiple media, and attempting to target mailings intelligently, for many decades.

If you’re an inexperienced online marketer and integrated marketing / intelligent targeting are news to you, go digest some traditional direct marketing books. If Drayton Bird’s classics are all you read, you’ll be onto a winner.

Wryly, I wonder which direct marketing principles will be ’discovered’ by fledgling marketers next. Lesson for businesses: check your Marketer’s or Agency’s experience and expertise before taking them on. ‘Young and vibrant’ ain’t always what it’s cracked up to be, and competition is far too fierce to risk missing a diretc marketing trick.

Internet marketing’s exciting, fast and cheap and, if you do it properly, extremely effective. But any marketer worth their salary or fee will also consider integrating offline campaigns seamlessly to maximise a budget’s impact.

It’s a clear case of whole being greater than the sum of the parts: traditional direct marketing is powerful stuff.

Take snail mail campaigns. It can be a challenge to be heard above today’s intense communication noise. Emarketing, evolving fast, is on everyone’s agenda and many businesses are using less traditional direct mail. Which provides the ideal opportunity to stand out by dropping a pertinent, succinct, beautifully targeted piece of print onto customers’ and
prospects’ doormats.

It needn’t be complicated. You can integrate a good value piece of print with an online offer, powering extra site visitors and making your business more tangible to the target market. Or use a simple but well-designed postcard as a device to drive general business to your site.

Direct mail needn’t be expensive. Here’s an example ‘on a shoestring’: It cost around £50 to print 250 postcards on 350gsm stock. Sent to a carefully selected hand-built database of 85 local businesses in Brighton’s creative community, it prompted a response rate of  10%. All responders converted to sales with an average sale value of £500. That’s a total of
£4,000 new business for a total outlay of £75.60 (inc. postage).

I designed and artworked the card myself. Most people will need to use a professional designer, who shouldn’t take more than two hours to design you something this simple. And
use a professional copywriter!

If you’ve got a great offer to make, which you target carefully to a relevant audience using attractive design and compelling copy, the numbers might well stack up!