Technological advances in business and marketing show no signs of stopping or slowing down. Everything is online and if a product or service can't be accessed on the internet then the assumption is that there is something wrong with that product or service, rather than the medium.
Perhaps in such progressive times it is easy to forget that a good offline marketing strategy not only compliments what is online, but is necessary for its success. A combination of the traditional and the modern is without doubt the best recipe for success, no matter what the business.
A case study of Facebook's early stages illustrates the importance of online and offline integration:
Facebook was started by Mark Zuckerberg in his dorm room and originally called Facemash, later Thefacebook. The site was intended to be a means of establishing connections between students at Harvard University – previously students had been given a book of photos to get to know one another, from which Thefacebook took its inspiration.
Within twenty-four hours of Thefacebook going live membership stood at 1500 students and after the first month over half of Harvard's undergraduate student body was on Thefacebook. Soon after its initial success the site branched out to include more universities, then companies and schools, before finally becoming what we know it as today.
Facebook's offline advertising and marketing was hugely impacted by word of mouth. But it wasn't only people talking that transformed the site from a college network into a business worth over $15billion. Student centred events were advertised online and held offline, so maintaining a real-world presence for a distinctly online organisation.
In recent years the online/offline integration has continued for Facebook as several companies use television advertising to promote their Facebook pages (Smirnoff and Lynx are two familiar examples).
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