Research On, Buy Off

I'm often asked a very good question: "Where is the sweet spot for presence-based advertising & marketing?" Fundamentally, presence-based advertising makes sense for those businesses that value a sales lead more than a click. Such businesses typically do not have a "shopping cart" on their online sites since their products and services are too complicated to be sold in such a manner. Generally, the ideal presence-based marketer sells goods and services that are heavily researched online, but are bought offline.

The research online, buy offline group represents a very wide cross-section of business types including such high consideration products as automobiles and other transportation products, real estate including houses and apartments. Further, many services also fit the bill including home services like plumbing, remodeling and landscaping and financial services such as accounts and financial planners and professional services including attorneys. Veteran publishers, of course, will instantly recognize the research online, buy offline has amongst their heaviest and most profitable advertisers. Automotive and Real Estate along with Homes have long kept the newspaper industry profitable -- a quick look at any Sunday newspaper classified section will confirm this. Attorneys are amongst the most profitable headings in most directory publications. In the Pay for Performance Advertising arena, $125 pay per call price tags are not unheard of in the Attorney category.

So these advertisers are proven to spend money - huge money, in fact - on advertising. However, successfully marketing and selling these products online requires interaction with the prospects -- Anybody gonna just stick that '03 Camry in the shopping cart and checkout?! Presence-based marketing enables these research-online, buy-offline advertisers to allow immediately engage their prospects allowing the mutual qualification process to complete more effectively for both parties. Advertising publishers that provide a better method for advertisers and their prospects will benefit.