Lee Roper asked:


So you’re out of town visiting a new city, and you go online to search for the hottest nightclub in the city. You finally think you have found it. The website is absolutely amazing. Lots of lights, a modern spin on the site, images of people crammed onto a dance floor, and even a limo outside the front door. Your write down the address, hop in the taxi and pull up to a hole in the wall when the driver tells you “That’ll be twelve bucks.” There is one small bar, the hanging neon sign is about to give out, and you can count the number of occupants on one hand.

This is an extreme example, but the last thing you want your online marketing to do is paint inconsistent picture from your offline marketing. Consistent marketing doesn’t mean that the colour on the walls is the same as the website background, and the logo on the front door is the same that’s at the top of the web page. If you want a high-end upscale site, then reflect the same offline. If you can’t quite get your offline location to match your amazing new flashy site, then tone down the e-marketing just a bit.

The first step in creating a consistent e-marketing presence is to know your industry. You don’t want your online presence to reflect that you don’t even know your own industry. Chances are, the feel of a nursing home site, is going to differ greatly from the new trendy lofts that just went up downtown. If you business caters to families, don’t design your online present to target individuals 18-24. Keep in mind that consumers already have their own idea of what image your industry should convey. You don’t want to veer too far off of that path unless you are prepared to take a huge change with your marketing strategy.

A great way measure your online marketing accuracy is by knowing your competition. Research the web presence that your competitors have already created. How is it working out for them? You may also want to look at competitors in other parts of the country. Look at main stream competitors as well as those in your class. How does their web presence differ? While you never want to create a site that looks identical or too close to a competitor the information that you gather from numerous competitors can be combined to create a top of the line, consistent marketing presence, both online and hopefully offline.

Also remember that online marketing can also be applied to search engine marketing (SEM). You want your site to be visible through the proper searches. Spending a lot of time and money on search engine marketing is only a waste if your site isn’t coming up with searches consistent to your industry. SEM can also be researched by searching for other businesses within your industry.

Make sure that when you’re combining your online and offline presence that you do stand out from the crowd. Chances are there is a sea of businesses within your industry with both a strong online and offline presence. But also make sure that when designing your site, you do not alienate yourself for being “too far out there”.

Lucien Bechard asked:


There is a lot of buzz going around the network marketing industry lately about online vs. offline marketing and which concept is better. The top leaders from each industry have been strongly stating their case as to why their concept is better. Both sides have strong and valid points that make it very tough to decide which one is better. But what if you didn’t have to choose a side? What if you could become involved with both of them?

Before we delve into this further let’s take more of a look into both industries.

Offline marketing & Direct Selling companies have been around since the beginning of time. It all started back in the day with people going door to door to pitch and sell their products. Companies such as Amway, and Mary Kay created a massive boom in the industry using the techniques of door to door selling. People in the 80’s and 90’s started learning the concepts of residual income and became really excited about the income potential this could bring to their lives. They started jumping on the bandwagon and began pitching their products and companies to everyone they came in contact with. There were a select few that made a tremendous amount of income from the direct selling craze, but most people ended up with nothing. A lot of people not only lost a lot of money, but they also had their dreams shattered along with it.

That’s when people started having a negative taste in their mouth about the direct selling industry. Terms such as “pyramid scheme” and “scam” began to surface.

The trends started to shift in the late 90’s. People started to become turned off to the concept of direct selling. They didn’t like bothering their friends and family. They weren’t interested in going to seminars and buying products they didn’t need. The direct selling industry now had a bad rap.

But here’s the key thing to remember. The concept and idea of residual income still stayed strong. Residual income wasn’t the “pyramid scheme” and it wasn’t a “scam.” Despite what people thought about the direct selling industry, no one could ever say anything negative about residual income. People still desired to have the lifestyle that residual income produced. They just didn’t like the way they had to go about achieving it.

Residual income never has and never will be a negative concept. The way people go about achieving residual income has become what’s negative. It’s a solid concept that most people still desire to have.

Now let’s flash forward to Internet boom. Ever since the Internet craze has hit the industry people have become inundated with business opportunities everywhere they go. People are being pulled in every different direction and they don’t know which way to turn.

The social media craze is causing such a stir throughout the industry. Sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and YouTube are taking over the Internet. If you go on any one of those sites, you will see that they are just one big “pitch fest.” Everyone is selling something, no matter if they are involved in online or offline marketing. They have a message they want to tell and they want you to hear it.

Everywhere people go on these sites they are being sold on business opportunities to “work from home,” “no meetings involved,” “no bothering friends and family,” and “no lotions or pills to sell.” 90% of the work will be done for them they are told. Terms like “pre-launch,” “get rich quick,” ‘join now,” ‘reserve your spot” have taken the industry by storm. Every time people log into their email, they get spammed by every Internet marketer on the planet telling them how great their business is.

So here’s where the crazy cycle has begins. Offline & Direct Marketers vs. Online Marketers. The tug of war has become heated.

Offline marketers believe in the old school network marketing principles of “making a list of friends and family,” “contacting them,” “showing them their opportunity,” and then “following through.” They believe in the human touch approach. They still hold motivational seminars, dream building sessions, strategy meetings, and cold call sessions like they did in the 80’s and 90’s.

They do network a little bit on the social media sites but most people don’t know what they are doing. They aren’t receiving any training from their up lines on how to brand themselves and market their business online. Also, most of the top offline companies have restrictions about their distributors using online marketing methods to promote their business. The distributors hands are tied.

Here’s where the struggle is taking place with offline companies and why they are losing most of their distributors to online companies. Most of these companies are on the verge of being wiped out because they are still stuck in the olden days of running a business. They are not with the times. Their philosophies of running a business are sound, they even have strong moral principles, but they are being buried by the Internet. Internet marketers are stealing these distributors away in droves and the people that are left are stunned when their down lines are wiped out.

Online marketers have a laser targeted focus on playing to the emotions of offline marketers. Their goal is to target all offline marketers and play off of the negative emotions they are facing with their current business. “The grass is greener on the other side” is what they portray.

With online marketing everything is automated with very little human touch. Online marketers just want people to enter their information into their “capture” page and then proceed to blast peoples email addresses with auto-responder messages hoping to play the law of averages. They know that if they can get their message to enough people, the law of averages will end up working in their favor.

“The money is in the list!” That holds true in both online marketing and offline marketing. It’s all about “the list.”

After reading this and seeing both sides of the fence, neither side seems appealing does it?

That’s because they aren’t working together! There is no “Synergy” working against each other.

That’s why you should incorporate both online and offline marketing methods into your businesses.

First of all, human contact is still the most important element in both online and offline marketing. Human contact is the key to having long term and lasting success in the network marketing industry. People want to do business with other people, not with a computer.

Online marketers can only hide behind the Internet for so long before their businesses will crumble. If online marketers want to become true leaders and have huge businesses, they have to incorporate human touch into their business.

If online marketers want to truly become successful, they need to still fill their minds with positive information through motivational cd’s and seminars, dream building sessions, and strategic planning sessions with other mentors.

Offline marketers have been teaching these principles for years and they are even more relevant in today’s world. Today more than ever, people want to be in business with someone they can trust. People still need guidance and mentorship from other leaders. Online marketers can learn a lot from offline marketers on how they build a business. The principles offline marketers use to build a business are sound and are still the basis by which a business should be built.

Let’s talk about what offline marketers need to do to get with the times before it’s too late. There’s no denying that the Internet has changed how business is being done. The social media giants are not going away and neither is online marketing. It’s only going to get bigger. Offline marketers need to start learning how to brand themselves and their businesses on the Internet if they want to succeed in today’s world. If offline marketers don’t learn how to market their businesses and brand themselves using the major social media outlets, they are going to get eaten alive very quickly.

There’s a tremendous amount of opportunity that’s come with the social media boom, but there’s a very limited amount of time people have left to learn how to capitalize on it.

If people get the right training they need now and learn how to use the Internet to build and market their business, they will become very wealthy.

It’s important to catch and ride the Internet and Social Media wave now before it’s too late! If you incorporate human touch in the process you will be a top leader that everyone turns to.

If people learn to combine the personal human touch, strong moral principles and philosophies of offline marketing, along with the momentum of the social media giants and the power of online marketing, they will become a part of history.

To learn how to effectively combine both online and offline marketing strategies to create “The Perfect Synergy” visit

Joseph Ratliff asked:


We live in a world of borders, don’t we?

There is a border between the USA and Canada…between the USA and Mexico…and so forth. Yet we continue as a society to visit both of those countries all the time.

So let’s apply this to today’s lesson…

There is a border between an online business and an offline business. This exists because of a variety of factors like the types of products sold, the people who sell them, and other factors.

But should there be a border at all?

Let’s share an example…

An online membership site sells its memberships on the typical “Free, upgrade to silver or platinum membership” model. Upfront, this membership offers a free 50 page report on a niche industry to generate leads through an opt – in page. This membership site offers this report plus the “free” membership with limited benefits.

Then it sells it’s upgraded memberships with all the bells and whistles like business packages specific to the niche industry, audio’s that give the “golden nuggets” of info, and maybe even video to “take you by the hand” and walk you through business improvement techniques.

To market this…the membership site owner might use article marketing, Pay Per Click, forum marketing, etc…

All the online marketing techniques we are familiar with.

But there is a better way, and I suggest you add this methodology to your online marketing model today. Notice I did not say to stop marketing online at all, as all of the aforementioned techniques work great when done correctly.

But the most productive way to market your online business is… offline!

That’s right, offline marketing. Direct mail, newspaper editorial – style advertisements, word of mouth offline, face to face networking, public speaking, print newsletters, etc…

I cannot go into detail about how to use each one of these techniques in this one post…but look for future posts to cover these topics.

But one question that is probably rattling inside your head is…

“Why do these techniques work better than online marketing?”

Well…that answer is multi – part to which I will present three ideas here:

1. Typically, online business owners view the Internet as the end – all of marketing their online business…and it simply isn’t. It is only one media used to market a business.

2. Audience. One example…the majority that read the newspaper do so with a different mindset. They are not the typical freebie – seeking, distracted, multi – tasking (when surfing the ‘net), individual that is using the internet. Instead, they are more focused on what is in front of them.

3. Distraction. I mentioned this in part 2 of my answer, but in detail…there are a number of distractions that present themselves on the Internet that simply are not present when someone is reading the mail, the newspaper, attending a face to face conference (congrats to those online marketers that figured that one out) etc…

There are certainly more reasons in support of offline marketing for your online business. I would encourage you to leave a comment to this post one way or another.