There is no doubt that online media has been tremendously influenced oil and gas industry and leading a great deal of business towards companies active in this media. Knowing how to use the opportunities that online media has to offer will greatly affect your business models.
The objective of online and offline marketing is quite similar which is to attract more traffic and to increase sales. Online marketing must be more visual compared to offline marketing.
Many still think Internet marketing is limited to banner ads on commercial sites and e-mail spam campaigns. Whereas, Internet marketing has a lot more to offer. Internet marketing is an extensive area, from advertising on professional business directories, content marketing.
Advertisement channels which are not connected to the World Wide Web are mainly called as “offline” advertisement. Offline advertisements are generally focused on local audience and include the following media:
- Radio
- Television
- Billboards
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Catalogues
- Brochures
Even in offline advertisement strategies, business owners and entrepreneurs frequently tie company’s offline marketing to their online marketing efforts. Online marketing in general is the process in which a particular product banner, flash animation, technical article, or video draw the attention of the potential consumer on the Internet. These messages typically place a visitor on a “landing page” of your product profile online.
The following are some of online media sources:
- Business Directory Listing
- Article (content) Marketing
- Email Marketing
- Search Engine Optimization
- Video Blogging
- Social Networking
- Banners
The fact is that offline marketing sources lose market share to the Internet marketing due to the ease of access and easily track return on investment, commonly referred to as ROI in Internet Marketing. Unlike traditional marketing methods, you can analyze and evaluate which of your marketing campaign elements are generating more sales after starting your Internet marketing campaign.
Below are some advantages of Internet marketing you need to know to be successful in your online marketing campaign:
Cost Effective
Reduced cost is the great advantage of Internet marketing compared to offline marketing like magazines and newspapers. This reduced cost is mainly due to cutting material, printing and man-power costs. Internet marketing offers reliable, flexible and easy budget management especially attractive for small to medium size businesses.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is a free service, that allow your product profile to show up in search engines and to lead more traffic to your product profile webpage. Good SEO rank can be reached by providing rich product content and regular updates.
Detail Analytics
Internet marketing is easily measurable through analytical tools that will indirectly impact on your business marketing strategy. Detail analytics give you accurate information about your product profile visits and website visits. The number of your product profile visitors is easy to measure and you can calculate the exact ROI. Whereas, in offline marketing you cannot tell how many people saw your product profile published in a magazines, catalogue, etc.
Real-Time Results
Internet marketing allows monitoring the results of your marketing campaign right after publishing and implementing your marketing strategy. If you use for example Email Marketing package you can measure directly the number of clicks on your listing profile and then displaying them in graphical format and analyze the impact with Listing Analytics package. This way the efficiency of your strategy can be measured and change your strategy in real-time if necessary.
Targeted Audience
Compared to offline marketing, determining your target group is much more precise in online marketing. Online directories can target your ads directly to a chosen target of professionals and display how many people you reached.
Long-Term Exposure
The average life span of a traditional or offline marketing campaign is limited to few weeks, but Internet marketing is a continuous process that will bring results evenly. If you have reached the first pages of search engines, then your ad can stay visible for potential clients for a longer period. Updates are of course necessary to hold this position.
Article (Content) Marketing
Content marketing helps to create and maintain the number of visitors interested in your software products. This is a great way to increase your company reputation and reliability that in turn spreads as word-of-mouth advertising among E&P professionals.
The main advantages that Internet marketing has over offline marketing are covering wider range of audience, cost effective, provide detail analytics, real-time results and email marketing campaign management, better targeting and long term exposure to targeted audience. If you are working to ensure that you have a well-rounded target audience, it is important to use a fine mix of marketing that is offline, as well as online in an effort to optimize your potential to increase sales.
Fortunately, professional marketing platforms are already available for you to start your Internet marketing campaign so, start your marketing campaign now and get advantage of opportunities that online marketing has to offer!
Benefits of Online & Offline Marketing for Your Business
One of the most dangerous things that you can do from a marketing perspective is change something that’s actually working. You might’ve observed that a lot of entrepreneurs are now using online marketing strategies. But if I were you, I’m not going to go online and fully give up everything I’m doing offline that’s working.
So if you’re already utilizing offline marketing that is, you’re meeting with clients, signing them up, and enrolling them don’t stop doing that. I think the biggest mistake in marketing is thinking that the grass is greener on the other side. And I’ve also made this mistake before. Online marketing helps you be more efficient, but offline marketing is also a great way to bring in revenue.