Do you consider your online marketing strategy integrated with or connected to your offline strategy? Do you think of them as one or two entities? In other words, do they work together or do you feel that your digital marketing is (and should remain) separate from the offline content? If you feel they should be separate, you may be getting it wrong. Because some of the largest shopping days are just over the horizon, it is time to make the most of both online marketing strategy and offline marketing and sales.

The Holistic Digital Marketing Concept

In a review of digital marketing, Smart Insights found that less than ten percent of businesses felt their online marketing strategy overlapped or integrated with the offline marketing.  This is fairly shocking when you consider how many consumers use social media and the Internet in order to find goods, research them, compare them and, typically, make the purchase.

And whether you think of your offline and digital marketing as a single and unified funnel or as two separate issues, you cannot ignore the fact that they both outline a “journey” for your customers. The journey usually has to follow a specific map that is formed by your goals. For instance, you can start with the destination or sale. How will it happen? Will it be online or offline? Will it be both? Where is it that your most likely audience is “hanging out”? Are they social media users or will they also use other media, including print?

Assessing Your Online Marketing Strategy

After you figure out the destination, it becomes much easier to see the ways that your online marketing strategy is (or is not) integrating with the offline information. Here’s a simple example: you are hoping to increase your retail sales over the holidays. You are selling online but also via kiosks in many malls and shopping centers. Does your digital marketing include a simple “find your closest vendor” feature? Does it let potential buyers know they can see the offline goods in person?

Or, maybe you have no offline sales outlets. Does that mean you shouldn’t bother with offline marketing? No. The key is to figure out your buyer’s or your audience’s most likely journey. It doesn’t matter if you are selling in real world or online venues – the buyer should never be asked to make a cold purchase without some sort of offline and online content.

There has to be some sort of overlap in these two worlds. If you need some help in figuring out how to make the very most of offline and online marketing as the holidays approach, contact the team at Organically. They can help you map out a buyer’s journey, find the ways to link your digital and real-world marketing, and net the most sales.