INMA_A01.QXD

Advantages and disadvantages of using offline communications to

support e-commerce

Offline communications work since they are effective in achieving four critical things:


 Reach since newspaper, TV and postal communications are used by virtually

all consumers;


 Brand awareness through using high-impact visuals;


 Emotional connection with brand again through visuals and sounds;


 Explanation of the online value proposition for a brand.

A further benefit is that for any given objective, integrated marketing communications

received through different media are more effective in achieving that objective. We men-

tioned this cumulative reinforcement effect of integrated marketing communications

when referring to the 4 Cs of coherence, consistency, continuity and complementarities

earlier in the chapter. Having said this, the disadvantages of using offline communica-

tions to encourage online channel usage compared to many online communications

tools are obvious. In general the disadvantages of offline communications are:


 Higher cost: Return on investment tends to be higher for online communications such

as search engine optimisation (SEO), pay-per-click marketing or affiliate marketing.


 Higher wastage: The well-known expression about ‘half my advertising is wasted, but I

don’t know which half’ may be true about offline marketing, but it isn’t true online if

the right tracking processes are in place.


 Poorer targeting: Targeting by behaviour, location, time, search keyword, site and site

content is readily possible online. This tends to be more targeted compared to most

offline media (apart from direct marketing).


 Poorer accountability: It is straightforward online to track response – offline it is expen-

sive and error-prone.


 Less detailed information: The detailed information to support a decision can only be

cost-effectively delivered online.


 Less personalised: Although direct mail can be personalised, personalisation is more

straightforward online.


 Less interactive experience: Most offline communications are one-way – interaction is

possible online with the right creative.

Incidental and specific advertising of the online presence

Two types of offline advertising can be identified: incidental and specific. Reference to

the web site is incidentalif the main aim of the advert is to advertise a particular product

or promotion and the web site is available as an ancillary source of information if

required by the viewer. Traditionally, much promotion of the web site in the offline

media by traditional companies has been incidental – simply consisting of highlighting

the existence of the web site by including the URL at the bottom of an advertisement.

Reference to the web site is specificif it is an objective of the advert to explain the

proposition of the web site in order to drive traffic to the site to achieve direct response.

Here the advert will highlight the offers or services available at the web site, such as sales

promotions or online customer service. Amazon commonly advertises in newspapers to

achieve this. Naturally, this approach is most likely to be used by companies that only

have an online presence, but existing companies can develop straplines to use which

explain the web site value proposition (as Mini Case Study 4.3 ‘BA asks “have you

OFFLINE PROMOTION TECHNIQUES

Incidental offline
advertising
Driving traffic to the
web site is not a
primary objective of
the advert.

Specific offline
advertising
Driving traffic to the
web site or explaining
the online proposition
is a primary objective
of the advert.