From Online to Offline - How Things Spread

A survey released by the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association (RAMA) of more than 15,200 shoppers looked at the most common ways that people spread the word about interesting products. It also looked at what types of offline channels were most likely to send people online for further research.

Here's a summary of the findings.

After some online research, consumers are mostly likely to share the information with others in the following ways:

Face to face communications - 68.9%

Sending e-mails - 53.1%

By telephone - 50.9%

By cell phone - 30%

Young adults (18-24)

Instant Message - 37.5%

Text messages - 23.7%

Online communities - 20.6%

The survey does shows that traditional forms of media often send people online in order to find more information about a product or service. 92.5% of adults go online "regularly or occasionally" in order to do more research before making a purchase.

Magazine ads - 47.2%

Reading articles - 43.7%

Newspapers - 42.3%

Television - 42.8%

Traditional advertising isn’t dead, it shows that this product is available. Companies need to interlock their offline marketing with online advertising along with product / service information in order to capture people's attention and loyalty.