Marketing Lessons Offline Stores Can Learn From The Internet

Internet stores realized the advantages of low operational costs, an unlimited audience and catering to their niches( yeah I am vaguely refering to the long tail). In this wake they also shed some old marketing techniques and developed new ones.

Since being entrusted with marketing for Kathana Jewellers ( and a pittance budget) I have often looked online for inspiration. Not just getting inspired but also borrowing from the online world and applying them offline.

Some of these out-of-the-box techniques were fairly easy to implement while others needed a whole new way of doing things.

The interesting lessons are:

• Customer testimonials : Websites love to put customer testimonials online we did the same at our offline store.

• Customized Jewellery : We borrowed techniques of Dell.com and Bluenile.com, to allow our customers to design and order Custom Engagement Rings. By custom making, customers save on the shelving cost and get a product of their liking and within their budget.
  

• Contextual Ads : These days Google and the likes allow you to serve ads contextually. So, a person living in India would see a different ad of the same product versus a person living in US. We are doing that offline as we serve different ads to different neighbourhoods based on the customers testimonials.

• Conversational Copy: We haven't tried this but this occurred to me recently. Isn't the web2.0 all about conversations? Make the copy of your marketing material a conversation.

Can you think of similar marketing/business lessons one can learn online and apply offline?