Book profile

Internet Marketing Integrating Online and Offline Strategies

Mary Lou Roberts,_ Debra Zahay

A comprehensive guide to integrating online and offline marketing strategies across the customer lifecycle of acquisition, conversion, retention, and value growth.

Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies (3rd Edition) by Roberts and Zahay is the definitive textbook for understanding how marketers create and deliver customer value in a digitally connected, multichannel world. Grounded in a strategy paradigm of customer acquisition, conversion, retention, and value growth, the book draws on the discipline of direct marketing to teach data-driven, measurable, and accountable internet marketing. It covers the full toolkit—online branding and video, display advertising, email, search (SEO and PPC), social media, lead generation, CRM, website development, customer service, metrics, privacy/security, and mobile marketing—while constantly emphasizing that the internet is never a stand-alone channel but must be integrated with traditional media and other touchpoints. Rich with real-world B2C, B2B, and nonprofit examples, the text equips students and practitioners to develop strategies that produce return on marketing investment.

The model

A causal model linking design levers (marketing tools, data, channel integration) through psychological and behavioral states (engagement, trust, satisfaction) to outcomes (acquisition, conversion, retention, customer lifetime value).

Frameworks you can use

Integrate online and offline strategies across all customer touchpoints.
Put the customer, not the product, at the center of strategy.
Drive marketing decisions with data and continuous testing.
Establish clear, measurable objectives before selecting tools and metrics.
Build trust through transparency, security, and customer-centric service.
Use permission-based marketing and respect customer control over communications.

Key terms

Online-Offline Channel Integration: The degree to which marketing communications and distribution are coordinated across online and offline channels to deliver consistent, seamless brand experiences.
Customer Data and Database Use: The capture, management, analysis, and application of customer clickstream and transactional data to drive targeted marketing.
Marketing Tool Deployment: The selection and use of specific internet marketing tools to reach and influence target audiences.
Permission and Personalization: Obtaining customer consent and tailoring relevant content and offers based on customer profiles and preferences.
Customer Engagement: The state in which customers actively attend to, interact with, share, and collaborate around brand content.
Customer Trust: The customer's confidence that a brand will act in their interest, protect their data, and deliver on promises.
Customer Satisfaction and Experience: The customer's overall evaluation of interactions with a brand across all touchpoints.
Customer Acquisition: Attracting and obtaining new customers or prospects who make a first purchase or permit further contact.