Many online businesses overlook offline marketing. There are many simple and cost effective offline tactics which can be used to promote an online business, and often, with greater impact than online marketing.
The advantage to simple offline tactics is that they make you
personal, and memorable. A website, even at its best, is impersonal.
A handshake, quick conversation, personal appearance, or other human
contact separates your business from all the other impersonal ones,
and makes you stand out because they remember who you are, not just
what you do.
Something as simple as a chance conversation where you leave behind a business card, can have a huge impact. Local events where you set up a booth and personally appear to tell and show people what you are all about can also do a tremendous job of letting people know who you are.
Radio and television spots are more appropriate to businesses which offer a more localized service or product, but other forms of offline marketing are very appropriate for nearly any business which can benefit from someone who picks up the phone to call you, or who punches in your website because they remember you.
Articles ~
Attention-Grabbing Fixes
that Make Your Yellow Page Ad Leap Off the Page
Stand Out in Ways that Matter to
Directory Users A Yellow Page directory presents a difficult
challenge for advertisers. It's not easy for one to stand out with a
clear, distinctive voice - like a soloist above the choir. That only
happens when the business is clear about expressing its unique
"song," and understands what buyers most want to hear.
Breaking the Voice Mail
Barrier
Even if you never place a cold
call, you still have to reach people by phone. That customer who was
so interested last month never called you back, and now you must
call her. You call once, twice, three times, but you can't get her
in person. How can you manage to close a sale if all you ever get is
voice mail?
Build Credibility, Value
and Trust on a Shoestring
Setting priorities in your
business? Your first job is to sell. Selling is - writing the
orders; receiving the cash; feeding the beast. If you don't sell;
the beast, (your business), dies. The impact of selling is
immediate. You may love it, but it is a beast. You need to feed it
and control it.
Do-It-Yourself Public
Relations
"Advertising is what you pay for.
Publicity is what you pray for." What is a small business owner to
do? You have dozens, hundreds or even thousands of competitors
around the world. How do you make yourself known amid all the noise
and confusion?
Highlights ~
Combine Your Yellow Page
Ad and Web Site for Maximum Profits
An unquestioned "must" for any
small business has been to run an ad in the Yellow Page Directory.
Since most customers were local, that was enough to establish itself
as "open for business."
Direct Mail Marketing
Now as Easy as Email
Is the United States Postal
Service (USPS) a marketing innovator? As it turns out, the kind
folks in the blue shorts are in fact making it easy for even the
smallest business to duke it out with their biggest competitors.