Case studies integrating online and offline marketing?

There is NO TREND... there is NO HYBRID...

And if you're seeing one it's only because that's where you are now focusing.

Intergrating the net and offline business has been around from the very start - even before the Web. In fact, I wager (a friendly, as I don't bet) that using the net to bring more offline business was how the net was FIRST used in a commercial way. (classifieds on BBSs to generate leads which were then sent a real letter through the mail, which sold a real product)

In '97 or '98 I wrote an article which mentioned a website might be better off following the rules of a good Yellow Pages ad - the potential customer doesn't need to be sold on your thing, just on buying your thing and not someone else's version of it. Short. To the point. One page long.

Around the same time, BenJamin Prater (Software Secrets Exposed) also figured a one page website could work. And we all got to see him bring his idea into reality and makes sales - as he did it. And as he's done again now.

And now all the rage is

Mini-sites.

J Nicholas Schmidt combined offline and online from his earliest beginnings.

Don Alm even shared with us some of the ways he had combined online and offline with some of his AD-ventures.

We've had eShowcase - enabling you to create an online catalog of the items in your offline business.

Offline business sending press-releases by using the online submission services.

Online "seminars and workshops" are old as the internet hills.

I've been getting emails from an offline business I am a customer of, for a little over three years now.

So it's not a trend and it's not a new hybrid. It's just that you're now paying attention to it.

And that may be because it's easier to do now, then it was back then.

Michael Ross.


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