Are there real similarities between actual marketing and internet marketing?

Never thought of it like that, but makes sense. I know the missus who works in offline marketing is a perfectionist when it comes to copy and content, and how to engage the audience.

I wouldn't dream of putting myself in the same class, but you do have to be aware of the quality and purpose of the content you are creating. Certainly not a case of throwing some stuff down and that will do, although you see this time and time again...

That's a good similarity I think. I try to do this when I write, but given the topic and my niche, its not always easy to put a fun spin on things.

Good point, Dreamraven. It would stand to reason that before embarking upon any form of marketing - be it internet or conventional, that one would need to know the fundamentals of marketing.

"Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses."
-Leonardo da Vinci

Online marketing is still marketing, no matter the medium. So learning the fundamentals of "actual" marketing can indeed help make your online campaigns more successful.

Exactly, online or digital, is marketing now. This is evident when you consider digital now makes up around 50% of marketing spend, with physical marketing spend being the remaining 50%.

The trend will continue to move to digital so if anything, marketing will be digital and vice versa.

Of course, they are very similar in many ways. That is basically because they are both chasing after the market and vice versa.

I'm a bit late on this thread, but it appears to still be active. The key is to integrate offline and online marketing into the mix, rather than choosing one over the other.

There are so many forms of marketing currently, and our prospects will prefer to respond in different ways. The more options we can give can only increase our chances of success.

Offline and online work very well alongside each other, building our brands and customer awareness.

It does, and with the many different kinds of businesses, sometimes one works better than the other depending on those businesses. I mean, someone that runs an online store would do better marketing online where most of their clients are meant to be, but will still be able to get some clients offline, its kinda more beneficial to work online than off.

I'm just thinking though. How badly would one of these mediums need to fail before you cut losses and focus on one medium.

It's clear; there's zero difference.

There I might need to disagree a little. Where, by looking at your sig, it could be beneficial to have both marketing techniques, you could do well with either. But there are some real differences. Look at some of the major brands out there though. They focus more on offline marketing, looking at TV ads, radio ads etc. and then have a support campaign online that is basically no more than a site and pages on social networks. Brands like coke-a-cola, red bull etc. Restaurants would be the same I think. Where they may have an online campaign to show visitors to their site where they are, they are more location based and need to focus on marketing offline as well to get people to visit. Simply getting visitors to visit their site is not going to help them financially, and it would not get their food sold. Unless they use their site for online booking perhaps?

So, where there are similarities, there are also differences. Because a person selling something like an ebook, would not need to use TV or radio to sell their product. They would need to focus on online marketing instead.