Undoubtedly contemporary media fragmentation has affected traditional marketing methods greatly. From the web to mobile the variety of available channels has grown significantly leading marketers to the realisation that new strategies of media integration need to be explored.

This rapid development has led many marketers toall too easy assumption that advertising methods — the primary building block of commercial promotion — will make a fundamental shift from offline to online media. To verify once and for all which were the facts and which the fiction behind the assumption that digital is to replace traditional advertising, Response One commissioned research into the relative effectiveness of different advertising media for encouraging consumers to visit a company’s website and seriously consider a purchase.

Logic would seem to suggest that the best moment to drive a customer to an organisation’s own website or a promotional micro-site, would be when the latter is already surfing the online environment, however, it is not yet clear how people spend their time online and Response One research found that any form of online contact is not always the most successful.

The research (Online Turn-On, 2008) found that the most effective media at driving web visits and purchase consideration were customer e-mails, rated by UK consumers as 52% more likely to inspire a web- visit or a serious purchase consideration than average. By contrast, however, untargeted prospect e-mails were deemed 31% less likely to drive online visits than average, probably due to their association in consumer’s minds with SPAM and intrusiveness. Understandably, consumers are more willing to be addressed by organisations they have already done business with, but it is also obvious that if levels of personalisation and targeting were improved to match those of customer mailings, the impact and reputation of prospect e-mails could vastly improve.

While, of course, consumers are better disposed towards communications from organisations they already have a relationship with, it is important to acknowledge that the other media consumers indicated as effective in driving online sales were among the least intrusive of all: TV/ Newspaper display advertising (32% above average) and direct mail - coming in at 16% more effective at encouraging web response and purchase than average.

Another interesting find indicates that transpromotional advertising, the practice of accompanying someone’s bill or statement with inserts from an affinity partner, is just as effective (8% above the average) as sponsored search engine links at inspiring web visits and purchase consideration.

2007 research by Pitney Bowes Group 1 Software (Are We Paying Attention?) found in fact that people spend more time looking at their statements than they do their tax correspondence, indicative of a space that could be efficiently monetised.

Over all it seems that for mass markets the continued use traditional above-the-line advertising techniques offering a prominent landing page URL, may still be a suitable strategy. Direct mail, however, is more profitable as it allows an organisation to segment its total audience and target more efficiently. The same can of course be said of e-mail where a similar focus on targeting, even in prospecting activity, can ensure the message is as closely in tune with consumer sensibilities as possible.

Along with Search Engine Optimization, another online advertising phenomenon that is currently sending media and marketing commentators into a frenzy of excitement is advertising on social networking sites such as myspace. UK consumers felt that such advertising, far from being effective in driving web visits and transactions, was on a par (at 26% below average) with unsolicited email (31% below average). Predictably, there was one major segment that proved an exception to this observation: the 18-24 year old age group, who put social network adverts and customer mobile texts both on 22% above average for encouraging web visits and purchase consideration.Even though it is likely that the habits of this age group will perpetuate into their forties and fifties, the marketing industry cannot afford to base its overall strategies on a singles cash-poor section of the population today.

In the past few years e-commerce has doubtlessly boomed, led by sectors such as retail where online sales now account for 5% of total retail sales with a peak in online food sales having gone up from 21% in June to 25% in October 2007 (Source: The Retail Bulletin). The pervasive nature of internet, however, has not changed the way consumers feel about being contacted by unknown third parties. Whereunsolicited, untargeted and intrusive marketing techniques are employed — by email or mobile phone —they are unlikely to elicit a favourable reaction from consumers. Poor performance on this front is largely due to the misuse of unsolicited email to date.

Organisations that choose now to work with specialists in the field of prospect e-mails to provide better targeted cold email messaging are likely to find themselves at a massive commercial advantage compared to their peers in a very short time span. For the industry as a whole, finally harnessing the information contained within commercially available lists to create communications that are more relevant will help to curb the ‘SPAM’ image of cold email. An interesting point to bear in mind is that individuals on such lists have opted in to receive emails from associated companies or third parties and will not be repulsed by relevant, timely messages.

In short, any received wisdom that consumers favour online advertising as the lead into visiting a company’s website is largely misplaced. The only variable customers are truly more responsive to is personalisation. Marketers still need to be using a mixture of direct mail, above-the-line advertising and sponsored links to attract new customers, as well as ensuring that they are communicating in a relevant and compelling fashion with their existing customers over the email and through existing lines of communication such as bills and statements.