Online and offline marketing often are looked at as separate channels and in reality they are. However, they should operate together under the umbrella of integrated marketing. Frank Reed at Marketing Pilgrim makes this point quite well:
If companies are serious that revenue generation is the number one objective for e-mail marketing the idea of supporting every marketing effort, both offline and online, should be a very close second in importance.
He said this in response to a survey that revealed that 25% of respondents thought that e-mail marketing supporting offline marketing efforts not very important. I have to agree that this is head-scratching data indeed.
So what are the areas of importance for e-mail marketing? According to data provided by MarketingSherpa, in order of importance, they are:
- Increasing sales revenue
- Improving customer relations
- Increasing lead generation
- Increasing website traffic
- Building brand awareness
- Increasing size of e-mail opt-in lists
- Supporting offline marketing programs
- Engaging social media audiences
So Frank’s contention is in reconciling the most important (increasing sales revenue) with the support of offline marketing programs. If you believe that the most important thing for your e-mail marketing campaigns is to increase your revenues, then shouldn’t it stand to reason that you’d place support of your offline marketing programs in high regard? You’d think so.
Here at Small Business Mavericks, we believe that e-mail marketing should support your offline marketing programs. Your online and offline marketing channels should be mutually supportive. If they are, then you’ll meet all of the other goals that are mentioned above. You’ll have the whole shebang.
I don’t know about you, but e-mail marketing to me means integrated marketing. And that’s how we do it.