Offline Marketing for Online Businesses

Marketing Theory — By Alyssa on June 13, 2011 4:23 pm

Most online business owners focus all of their attention on online marketing strategies, like Google Adwords, Facebook PPC, article marketing, and SEO. While all of these methods are valuable and useful, you’re most likely leaving a ton of money on the table by ignoring offline strategies that can help to generate new leads and business. In this article, you’ll learn some of those techniques and how you can apply them to your own business. Don’t worry – most of these strategies are free or close to it

Sending a Letter

Yes, it’s easier to send an email, but think about all of the emails you receive on a typical day. How many of those end up in your spam folder or get deleted as you browse the subject lines? It’s sad to say, but this same thing could be happening to the emails that you send to your customers.

Instead of competing for their attention through email, why not try snail mail for a change? The trick is to make the letter look like it’s sent from a friend; with a handwritten envelope if possible. Don’t use any “teaser copy” on the outside, which would indicate that the letter is from a business. Make the letters look natural, and only send them to proven buyers.

Google TV Ads

This is not one of the free methods I mentioned in the first paragraph, but it can be very effective. If you have a Google Adwords account, you can start running TV commercials right away. The great thing about this strategy is that you have total control over your budget and the placement of your ad.

If you only have a budget of $100, you might want to consider testing the ad for one night during the early morning hours. This will give you an idea of how effective the ad is and whether you should continue running it. Make sure that your ad directs people to a website that captures their email addresses. This will allow you to communicate with them even after the ad has finished running.

Chamber of Commerce

The Chamber of Commerce is usually thought of as an organization for storefront businesses, but there’s no reason why you can’t join your local chapter. If anything, it can be a great chance for you to network with other owners like yourself. You may even have a chance to present in front of the membership; this would give you a chance to talk about your products and services and plug your website. You can also attend seminars, workshops and learn from speakers usually brought in for breakfast or lunch meetings.

Becoming an Expert on TV

If you have a unique product or service or are an expert in your market, you might want to consider doing a segment for your local TV news program. These programs are always looking for ways to produce fresh new content, and you could be the person to fill that need. You could send out a press release to the local news programs, or you could even try to contact a reporter through something like Twitter. If you have an interesting product to show, or you are competent to offer solutions oriented advice, these programs will be happy to interview you.

Don’t limit yourself to only using online strategies to market your business. There are many offline techniques that are very effective and can cut through the noise of the Internet. You can reach people with little money (except for Google TV Ads!) and be seen as more credible in your market.

Related articles

• How To Grow Your Online Promotion With These Tips (frommyexperience.com)
• Top 10 Ways To Promote Your Social Media Presence Offline (toptenz.net)
• How To Make Your Offline Presence Work For You Online (seomoz.org)

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