darren

For all of you who have marketed your business offline aswell as online, what do you think the major difference is?

I would have to say the choice of different types of marketing you can do online is the biggest diiference nd the fact that you have to take into account alot of different cultures.

Super Mod

The thing about offline advertising is that you can reach thousands of people whereas with internet advertising you might not be able to do so with as little money. The audience is just so much bigger offline.

anne

Online you can reach a bigger audience, but you might end up with people that you don't want (e.g. visitors from countries you can't serve). I think the potential is bigger with online if you do it right. Offline you can target better though - place ads in shops that people who are interested in your business will go to, etc.

anteater

The major difference that if you market online you are reaching the whole world.
Offline advertising is great if your business is locally targetted.

But if you are running a business that is targetted to the whole world, you are better off doing most online promotion.

They are 2 completely different animals for different purposes.

kris

Yes this is true. Offline marketing is great if you are targeting your local area and some surrounding areas. Online promotion makes it possible to gain customers from anywhere.

Josie

Why not take the best from both and target your online marketing to your local market? That way your offline ad dollars will reap their greatest benefit and so will your online, if you don't really care about international traffic because it doesn't convert well.

Take a look at your web stats and see where the people who are actually doing something on your site are coming from (which geographic area). Concentrate, of course, on those who convert to a sale and provide you with ROI. Then you may decide to concentrate your ad dollars on selling to that specific geographic market if that works best for you.

I think one of the keys to online success is consistent analysis of your converting traffic and visitors who spend a lot of time on your website even if they don't buy anything. Stats about these visitors can be used for the core of your online ad spend and then experiment outside that core if you have extra funds available.

Tucker

I find that marketing offline can be harder, but more successfull. Online marketing can cost you big bucks, but in the end, it really depends on how you market your website.

tiny

It also depend on who are the people targeting...

Mike C

I agree with you completely. Online, you can promote your business to the entire world; you'll reach people of every country (well, those with internet access).

Offline, you can reach your surrounding cities and states. If you have big money, then you can reach the world. But with big money, you can do anything.