I want to take up my previous post in which I warned about some common mistakes that marketers and brand managers make. In this post, let’s focus on the marketing objectives and let’s answer the question whether they are (or can be) achieved in today’s online marketing world.

The most fundamental marketing objectives are:
– change consumers’ attitudes (change what they feel, think, in what they believe) which afterwards helps to
– change consumers’ behaviour. Marketing efforts win over consumers in the moment when they are doing (not doing) what marketer wants them (not) to do.

If any brand manager asks himself whether his brand’s presence and activity on SM are changing consumer’s attitudes and behaviour towards brand (products), the answer in most cases is NO.

What e-marketers do on SM is they try to spread awareness and positive WOM, encourage people to talk about brand, communicate problems and inquiries with them etc. I believe, e-marketers stucked at the beginning of purchase funnel – at the stage of spreading awareness. Yes, it is consumers’ attitudes towards SM and their behaviour online what had changed a lot, but this change has nothing to do with the marketing objectives!

Only smart combination of an online and offline marketing brings the brand closer to those dreamy objectives. Vancouver based company Indochino gives us a nice example. They very smartly use SM to invite men to the tailoring studio (which travels from city to city) where potential customers can experience all brand benefits offline (touch different materials, see colors and combinations on their own eyes, let a personal tailor measure them and offer them the best suit).

And this is only one example of many branches where the offline marketing still plays the prim and hardly can be replaced by any online performance.