As a business consultant, I’ve observed business owners who believe that more business will come from the internet space. While this is partially true for small businesses (especially those in local business) who have not tapped the online market, it is still important to remember that any business (whether based in cyberspace or in the brick and mortar world) can benefit from offline marketing. Many internet marketers such as myself, have used offline marketing like direct mail and print advertising with great success. Even with the growth of search engine marketing, do realize that some people are still not able to use computers and would still be potential candidates of our products and services. This is especially true of the older and less educated people out there who wouldn’t know how to use the internet. With the mad goldrush like behavior of businesses throwing more of their budget on online advertising, a business should still consider offline avenues to boost their profits. Considering that their competitors have shifted gears to online advertising, this could give them the added competitive edge offline while still keeping their watchful eye on online marketing developments. Google has realized this and is exploring this avenue of growth as you’ll read below.
Already a giant in online advertising, Google is quietly testing the waters of offline advertising. It is buying ad pages in established technology magazines and offering it piecemeal to its Adwords advertisers.
If this proves to be successful, Google can start to tout itself as the one-stop advertising solution – both online and offline. This certainly has caught the traditional offline advertising business by surprise as many businesses outsource such ads to large advertising agencies and let them take care of it. This would be good news for advertisers as the cost of advertising in such magazines could fall and be more reasonable to advertise in than at present.
More on the story here.