No, I’m not having a go at you, I’m being inquisitive as to what marketing initiatives are you doing online to compliment your offline efforts?

After one of many informative seminars at the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference in London a couple of weeks ago, I came away reviewing the benefits of coupling both your online and offline marketing efforts to ensure that you are achieving the best and most beneficial exposure for your company. Consider the power of TV, radio, newspapers, word of mouth and even your shopping trip on a Saturday and consider the impact that these channels have to reach and influence potential customers. They can be very powerful indeed.

But how can this impact your online marketing I hear you ask?

Well, has a friend ever recommended something to you and you have gone online to search for it? Or did you see an advert on television or in a newspaper that prompted you to find out more by searching on the net?

Here are a few stats provided at SES from an “Offline channel influence on online search behaviour study” conducted by iProspect.

• 67% of online searches were a result of offline influences (with television and word of mouth being the most effective channels for driving searches)

• 39% resulted in actual online purchases

These figures certainly reinforce the power of combining both offline and online marketing which is why it is good to forward plan any offline marketing labours you may have and couple them with things like an online press releases or targeted PPC ads etc.

I have seen many of our clients missing out on this as more often than not, traditional offline marketing is seen as something totally separate to online but its not. By informing your SEO company and providing a kind of ‘road map’ of any offline marketing initiatives you have in the pipeline, they can help you streamline both mediums to ensure that the hype that is generated offline can be captured online to drive more traffic that is likely to convert. Make sure you don’t miss out!

….And just some final comments about my day at SES…. I’d like to say a special thanks to the free biscuits I managed to scoff on my way to the Keynote seminar (you were nice) and also a thank you to the guy that was doing card tricks – I’m a sucker for checking to see if there is anything wrong with the hankie! 🙂