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Promote Your Online Business Offline. There are a number of great ways to promote your online business offline. Combining offline advertising with your online presence will create momentum and increase your profits. There are a number of ways to promote your business offline. Generate traffic. Produce sales. Increase profits. Those words are gold to every business with a Web site. But an overwhelming majority of entrepreneurs don't ever reach their goals of gold. This is mainly because there seems to be an unwritten code of Web advertising. It states you can only be successful on the Internet if you are using online advertising methods like search engines, banner ads and buying online ad space. True, this should be a factor in any company's marketing efforts but there's an old rule of advertising you should Consider... offline. There are three main offline-advertising mediums worth investing in to drive people to your site. Print, television and radio ads are fairly inexpensive and have the power to promote your dot com presence effectively. It's cheaper and more effective than you think. Print Newspaper advertising and Direct Mail advertising are easy ways to get your message in front of a large audience. When placing these kinds of ads you want to put them in the business opportunities or work at home section of the classifieds. If you are only going to run them one day a week focus on the Sunday edition as this normally has the highest circulation. If possible run the ad consistently as this will build some familiarity with the readers and will lead to better response. Be sure to find out the circulation and compare the cost with the circulation to find the best deals. Solo direct mail can be very affective in reaching a specific demographic. Using a targeted list/ database, you can focus on the type of customer you want, not the ones you don’t. If you've researched your list, you have a higher chance of hitting potential customers instead of the trash can. You've made your list and checked it twice, so-to-speak. It's the perfect list. Now it's time to write. Define your objectives before you start writing. Stay focused and hit the points of your objective. If you get off track, your reader is going to stop reading. Spend a lot of time on your headline. Just remember how you feel when reading mail that comes to you. After you read that headline, do you keep reading? The headline can make or break your direct mail campaign. Does price really matter? Not unless you know what you're getting for that price. Hook your reader with all of the product benefits. By the time they get to the end, they should be saying, "I can't live without that!" And then you let them in on the price. Even if the price is extremely low, you have to tell potential customers about the product first. Disclosing this price shouldn't put people into shock. Is your product priced according to the market? If you're selling a new teddy bear, it should be priced within reason. Not many people will pay $90 for a tiny teddy bear, right? Truth is, a lot of direct mail goes unanswered because the products are unreasonably priced. Success! Your potential customer read all the way through your mailing. Now what? Did you tell the reader what you want them to do? You can't sell if you don't tell. Your readers need a call to action. Tell them to send in the card, call you, etc. Then tell them again. Once your direct mail is ready to go, test several smaller mailings before sending out a huge chunk. Test each of these mailings by changing a few items when you send them out. Have two or more sales letters you test against each other. By testing, you will find out which of those mailings are bringing in more responses and - hopefully - more orders. Stick with the clear winners. Remember the saying; Direct mail is a waste of money for a lot of people. But it doesn't have to be for you. Understanding direct mail deadly mistakes -- and avoiding them -- will lead you to sales success! Flyers the next offline advertising method I am going to talk about in this article is a simple flyer. These are a great way to get your website in front of a wide audience. Make 1000 copies and dedicate yourself to handing out all of them in the next 7 days. Here are just a couple of places to hand these out: around your neighborhood or a large neighborhood nearby, place stacks at local restaurants, dry cleaners or other places of business, or go to your local college campuses and find areas you can place your flyers. Novelty advertising there are loads of novelty ways to advertise. Use your imagination and be original. Depending on the product you could have your web address printed on t-shirts and give them away to tourists. If you make them bright enough they will wear them with big smiles on their faces all day advertising your website try printing on mouse mats, pens, balls or any other novelty item. It doesn't even always have to be related to your product to get good results although a related gimmick can work wonders. Radio/TV A 30- or 60-second radio spot is quite a bargain. Rates vary depending on your area's population. Even still, you can negotiate a cheaper price and receive a better rate if you buy a bulk amount of commercials. One of the many advantages of radio is that you can target your audience. Specific age groups and lifestyles are all defined by the station's format. Ratings also help determine this information and can help you choose the best station and time slot for your company's commercial. The key components of your radio commercial include your name, address, telephone number and selling message. But be sure to ask listeners to visit your site. Repeat your URL at least twice and, again, tell them what they'll gain by visiting. Television Get ready to shatter the myths about television commercials. You don't have to be a major corporation or have tons of disposable ad dollars to hit the airwaves. Buying airtime on your local television station is actually very affordable. But for an even lower rate, check the cable TV companies in your area. Airtime is significantly lower than broadcast television ad rates. You also have the added benefit of reaching a specific target audience. Your cable operator can even gear the commercials to a zip code or local community. Infomercials aren't too far behind commercials as a low-cost, traffic-building tool. Even a 15-minute infomercial can explain your products/services and promote your Web site at the same time. Just like with print, make sure your URL is prominently displayed in your commercial and/or infomercial. Keep in mind, not everybody has a big screen TV at home and this can make a huge difference to a potential customer with a 19" screen. Conclusion New technology forces us to adapt to new advertising means. But sometimes old school techniques are overlooked when, in fact, they can actually help propel business into the money-making wave of the future. Don't just do it once and be happy with your results, if something works keep repeating it and as you make money put more money into your venture. Best of luck to you all. TheMarketingShop1.com
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