I had an interesting exchange of emails today with a marketing manager for a top 10 outdoor retailer. A classic brand in the outdoor space if there ever was one.
What our conversation boiled down to was this: They are sticking with print for their branding and awareness and only view online as a "luxury" that unless it can back out with positive ROI it isn't worth their time.
So what they are saying is that they understand the average outdoor enthusiast spends 6 minutes and 5 seconds on our outdoor sites each and every day, yet its the one or two times they flip through a magazine that the "real" branding takes place. For real?
To succeed in today's economy, you need to be informed. By sticking with print, you are simply allowing your brand to repeat the mistakes of the past. This is not the case with all brands, and the ones who "get" it are making a killing. Why? Because they are spending less money to build brand awareness with online, they are not paying high prices for print ( some have cut print out all together) and while their competition is overpaying for their branding these cutting edge brands are stealing market share.
There was a pretty cool study that came out today from Comscore that I'll have to grab and post some results. With online, not only can you find ROI, but the branding is there...you just need to know how to see it and measure it.
