September 19, 2012

Align your offline and online marketing (from 2008 SES Expo - updated)

Back in 2008, I saw this post -- an interview with Rob Murray, President at iProspect.   He was also one of the keynote speakers at the 2008 Search Engine Strategies expo, held in San Jose, California. The interview appeared in SEMGeek, an online blog that covered the SES Expo, as well as issues on search engine marketing.  For more, check out www.semgeek.com.

I liked his comments, but one statement which particularly caught my attention is the need for an alignment in offline and search marketing efforts (see Rob's response to Question #4 in the post).  He was not the only one who has identified the need back in 2008.

At that time, I also discovered a Harvard Business Review ideacast (#42) in which Duncan Watts, a business researcher, talked about his research on viral online campaigns.  He noted that in order to have effective virtual marketing, the initial seed of “carriers” – consumers who use word of mouth – would have to be large to reach a substantial number of potential customers. The epidemic analogy typically used for the concept of viral marketing is somewhat flawed because an epidemic seed was smaller than that needed for an effective marketing campaign.

The researcher was advocating the usage of traditional media and online marketing as a hybrid viral method to help drive a message from a big seed, even when the message is burning out over time. The traditional media is used to create the seed; the online marketing tools gives the "carriers" a means to pass the message along. Proctor and Gamble used this method to market an Eco-friendly version of Tide, which Watts studied.

It is this mix that companies large and small must seek to best market products and services.  Given the increasing use of mobile and tablet devices, monitoring attribution is increasingly key for developing useful marketing strategy.

(originally posted August 17, 2008)


2 comments on “Align your offline and online marketing (from 2008 SES Expo - updated)”

  1. Took me time to read all the comments, but I really enjoyed the article. It proved to be Very helpful to me and I am sure to all the commenters here! It's always nice when you can not only be informed, but also entertained!

    - John

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