Relationship between Offline and Online

Nowadays, financial institutions have the opportunity to utilize both online and offline channels for their marketing tools. An example of offline marketing might be prominent advertising on the street and online might be use of social networking services. Lifenet Insurance, one of Japan’s online insurers, is a good example of how to leverage both the offline and online marketing approaches. As online-only insurers people might think that they mainly do marketing online, but they extensively do marketing offline too. Their executives often step up to the podium to not only explain their business but also speak about topics unrelated to insurance. Their goal in these offline activities is to generate awareness of Lifenet, both its products and its management. Lifenet asserts that their offline activities expand into online by means of social network posts by their “offline” audience. Therefore, they don’t care how large of an audience comes to their seminars. They believe that offline marketing is closely linked to online marketing. It might be nonsense to treat offline and online marketing separately because what happens offline can expand very quickly by means of online social networking. It is true that face-to-face voice still has a strong power to convey some messages better than online. So, it is important to do marketing utilizing the advantages of each. Financial institutions, particularly in Asia, might be reluctant to expand their activities through social networking quickly because of the risk that the social audience might focus on issues unfavorable to the institution. However, they should not ignore the potential for expanded use of SNS activities to create good opportunities to grow their business.