CIS 434 Module 6 Online and Offline Marketing Levers Example

Expo Booths, Tying Nights and a Map in the Box: An Integrated Program of Online and Offline Levers for a Montana Fly Shop

Student Name

Business Administration Program, Aspen University

CIS 434: Internet Marketing

Instructor Name

Month Day, Year

Expo Booths, Tying Nights and a Map in the Box: An Integrated Program of Online and Offline Levers for a Montana Fly Shop

Rattlesnake Creek Fly Shop now has a strategy, an experience design and an interface. None of them matters if traveling anglers never arrive at the site, and none of them works as well if the shop's physical presence, its store, its guides and its tying bench, is kept separate from its online presence. This paper builds a marketing program that uses online and offline levers together. The shop, its events and every amount are made up for this course.

Why Physical Presence Still Matters

Avery et al. (2012) studied a retailer that sold through catalogs and the internet before opening its own stores. In the short run, a new store took some sales from the catalog in its area, though not from the internet. Over time, however, the stores raised sales through both direct channels, as customers who had seen and handled the products in a store bought more from home. A physical presence worked as advertising and reassurance, not only as a sales point.

Bell et al. (2018) studied an online eyewear seller that opened showrooms where customers could try frames but usually ordered online. Opening a showroom raised the firm's total sales and its online sales in the surrounding area, and customers who had visited a showroom returned fewer orders, because they had seen the product first. The physical location made the online channel work better.

For a fly shop whose best customers live far away, a permanent store in Denver or Minneapolis is out of the question. But the findings suggest that temporary physical presence, a booth where anglers can meet guides and handle flies, could do similar work. The shop's own records point the same way. Of the 214 out-of-state clients who booked trips last season, 61 had first met a guide in person somewhere, at a friend's house, a club meeting or a chance encounter on the river, and those 61 booked earlier, bought more flies before arriving and were twice as likely to return the next year as clients who had found the shop only through a search.

One Experience Across Channels

Verhoef et al. (2015) described the shift from multichannel retailing, in which a firm managed each channel separately, to omnichannel retailing, in which channels and touchpoints are managed together and the boundaries between them blur. Customers search on a phone, ask a question in person, buy on a laptop and pick up in a store, and they expect the firm to recognize them throughout. Consistent prices, information and service across channels are therefore part of the product.

The Lever Matrix

The Winter Expos

Fly-fishing expos in Denver and Minneapolis each draw thousands of anglers in January and February, many planning summer trips. A ten-foot booth costs about $3,500 per show plus travel for two guides. At the booth, guides tie flies, answer questions about rivers and hand each interested visitor a single fly in a small envelope printed with a code for 15% off a first kit. Each guide also gives a twenty-minute talk on fishing western Montana in a particular month, ending with the river report's address. Following Bell, Gallino and Moreno, the booth is less a sales counter than a place to see and handle the product and meet the people behind it. Success will be judged by the codes redeemed and the planning calls booked in the eight weeks after each show, not by sales at the booth itself. If a show produces fewer than twenty bookings within a season, it will be dropped the next year and its budget moved to the other city or to more referral boxes.

The Store as a Community Hub

Tying nights at the store run every Tuesday from November to March for about twenty local and regional anglers. Guides photograph the evening's flies and post them in the online gallery with the pattern's recipe, which gives distant anglers a reason to visit the site in winter and gives locals a reason to bring friends. In summer, a barbecue for past clients after the salmonfly hatch turns customers into a community.

Budget

The Calendar

Conclusion

Rattlesnake Creek's program treats its store, guides and expo booths as part of its online strategy. Avery and colleagues and Bell, Gallino and Moreno show that physical presence can strengthen direct and online sales, and Verhoef, Kannan and Inman show why prices, voice and information must match across channels. For $38,000 a year, the shop can meet traveling anglers in person in winter and keep them connected online through the season.

References

Avery, J., Steenburgh, T. J., Deighton, J., & Caravella, M. (2012). Adding bricks to clicks: Predicting the patterns of cross-channel elasticities over time. Journal of Marketing, 76(3), 96-111. https://doi.org/10.1509/jm.09.0081

Bell, D. R., Gallino, S., & Moreno, A. (2018). Offline showrooms in omnichannel retail: Demand and operational benefits. Management Science, 64(4), 1629-1651. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2684

Verhoef, P. C., Kannan, P. K., & Inman, J. J. (2015). From multi-channel retailing to omni-channel retailing. Journal of Retailing, 91(2), 174-181. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jretai.2015.02.005