offline to online success stories

You must have heard about people who succeeded with their online business such as Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com) and Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). But can you recall someone who got success by shifting their business entirely from Offline to Online?

We must be aware of businesses that transformed well into the digital world, such as banking, renting, advertising, entertainment sectors (movies and music) and shopping. But it is hard to remember the person who converted the entire offline business to online and achieved success. However, we know companies which lie in between offline and online, which means they started with the offline marketing and later introduced their company online.

This article focuses on a few such people – those who started with an online business; and those who began offline but went online to take place.

Started with Online Business:

  • Rand Fishkin: Also known as the Godfather of the SEO industry and Co-founder of a SaaS company Moz. Rand initially in the absence of any support back then started learning SEO of his own. Later, co-founded Moz along with his mom Gillian Muessig. The company today is known for providing best inbound marketing and marketing analytics software which is used by many other leading industries to excel in the world of marketing.
  • Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah: Those who perform online marketing for their company, they must be aware of free and paid tools offered by HubSpot. The tools provided by HubSpot are for social media marketing, web analytics, content management and search engine optimization. HubSpot was co-founded by two MIT alumni – Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah. HubSpot offers many consulting services and has an online academy for learning various marketing skills such as Content and E-mail Marketing.
  • Michael Pryor and Joel Spolsky: If you have ever used Trello, then you must know masterminds behind this excellent app. Trello is one of the most used task management and project planning tool, created and launched by Michael Pryor and Joel Spolsky back in September 2011. This tool is available online and has a presence on iOS and Android platforms.

Started Offline and Went Online:

There are many companies which started their journey without the internet playing any role in their marketing strategies. However, almost every company is online today, and the reason behind it is 45% of the population is using the internet currently. Reaching out to them is much easier today than at any time in the past.

Below are few companies which started offline but also went online to make their presence visible to masses:

  • Target Corporation: It is the eighth-largest retail company in the world. Started back in 1902, it has a long story in multiple name changes from Goodfellow Dry Goods to Dayton Company and later as Target Corporation. It continued for many years with multiple department store chains before going online back in 2000 as target.direct. Then it was rebranded as target.com in 2011. The reason behind going online was fierce competition from the e-commerce giant – Amazon.com.
  • Domino’s: Founded in 1960, Domino’s was a pizza restaurant chain. But recently in the last decade, it has been one the most successful online company which got covered in many case studies because of its success. Customers need not have to stand in the queue to receive their orders. They can use their smartphones or any devices with internet access to place their order.
  • Walmart: Again, one of the well-known multinational retail company which was founded in 1962. Till with multiple department stores, hypermarkets and grocery stores. With its low-cost model, it enjoyed being one of the most successful retail chains in the world. However, along with Target, Walmart also faced fierce competition from Amazon.com, and it had to go online to keep its presence intact. In 2007, Walmart introduced its e-commerce division to make a purchase online and pick up merchandise in stores.

These are just a few companies to list down in this article. The purpose is to suggest that “going online” is the future. If you stick to the offline strategy, then you might lose the game without even knowing where you missed. The online market is a vast playground and players are capturing their space without wasting time. It is affordable, easy to access potential customers and effortless to mark your brand presence.

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