What to choose between online and offline communication?

by Marsh Maxwell Web Digital Group

Better the Facebook page or a flyer? Better the website or a new company brochure? In this article you will find our reflections starting from the question of the questions: what to choose between online and offline? 

How the public has radically changed in half a century

Let's compare two sentences that you certainly have heard too, since they are part of our collective imagination.

The first is from 1952 , the pronunciation Humphrey Bogart and is considered one of the most famous cinematic lines of all time

"It's the press, beauty!"

The second is not attributable to a famous personality in particular, but in the last ten years it has been felt on the lips of various consultants, commentators, scholars of communication, in some variations that however always carry the same meaning:

«The press is dead / The printed paper will disappear / By now everything is done online / etc.»

These two extremes would be enough to understand how, in the 70 years that separate them, the habits of the public have changed , even radically, and how the advent of new media has shifted the balance.

Going more concretely into our field, the question that many entrepreneurs ask themselves every day in studying the most suitable communication strategy for their company is:

How much do I have to commit myself online and offline?

Let's start from a fact. The off-line communication , often called "traditional" because it has had a greater historical, produce something physical, concrete, tangible : it's a flyer or advertisement in the newspaper, a cart sailing or one radio and television commercials , it is a product with its "consistency". This nuance is still reassuring for some entrepreneurs , who instead see in the online universe a more ambiguous, more elusive, less solid panorama.

The downside is that the term "traditional" can lend itself to the concept of "old" and therefore fail to generate interest in some audiences. In extreme cases it can even generate waste.

On the other hand, online communication is extremely dynamic and constantly evolving. At high speed the software changes, the possibilities offered to users, the means themselves. Where once, for example, a printed corporate brochure can be printed and used for a few years without the need for further interventions, this time pause is not conceivable online: a corporate website or even more a social page must be kept alive and fresh with constant updates and quality contents always current.

 

A first conclusion follows: the type of commitment required of the company from online communication is different from the off line .

What are the findings of the current audience?

Imagine receiving a flyer at your home with a product that interests you on offer, but you want to receive more information (for example on size or color) before physically engaging in going to the store. What could you do? Usually a phone call or email right? But how many times in your life have you really done it?

Now imagine that the same product appears in a post on the Facebook page of the same shop: do you agree that it is much more immediate to reply to the post and ask the shop directly what interests you? Sometimes it may have happened to you, or if you have not done so, it still happens daily for millions of users of social networks.

From here it follows easily a second important conclusion: online communication allows for greater interaction .

How has my client audience changed?

We also hear this question from numerous entrepreneurs. Obviously an exhaustive answer cannot be addressed in the space of an article, but let's take the example of the first flyer arrived home and imagine how the proverbial "Mrs. Maria" would have reacted in 1985 and how she would react today: in 85 she would have simply gone in the shop if the product or the discount lever had been quite attractive, today almost certainly an extra step takes place, that is, an online search (or directly by our "Signora Maria" or perhaps with the help of a child ) more product details or alternatives at a lower price at other stores or e-commerce.

Here is the third important conclusion: the current consumer is more attentive, more informed, less loyal, more elusive, more smart .

Past, present and future: integrated marketing

Just the example of the previous paragraph hides between the lines an answer to the question that we have already asked in the title of this article: when our protagonist receives a paper material that stimulates her - therefore off line - and performs a search on line to set up his purchase decision, perhaps by accessing the store's website or his social page, means that the two means coexist and influence each other. In technical terms this is a really basic example of integrated marketing .

If you have come here to read you will probably be nodding, because in this precise historical moment integrated marketing is a highly discussed topic and of undoubted interest for all entrepreneurs who, like you, strive to find - or be seriously advised - the best strategy to optimize your company's communication investments.

 

From the creative point of view, the coexistence of the two universes offers the development of new transversal concepts that can attract attention , stimulate interest, impress themselves in the memory of an audience that will find them replicated and declined in different forms on different media to which it is exposed. And the ability to create such a transversal, coherent and adaptive content is the daily challenge in which the entire staff of our Communication Studio is involved.

This is why our internal resources with a strong "traditional" training constantly compare their experience with the innovative stimuli that come from the web & social department and the creativity of the graphic design and copywriting departments, to finally arrive at a strategy that meets the need primary of every company: bring results !

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Created on May 3rd 2020 13:35. Viewed 133 times.

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