By now I am sure you have tried every trick in the book at least twice. Don’t feel bad and keep trying. If you have not thought about off line marketing now might be a good time to take a minute and learn a little something about it.
First optimize your online situation as best you can. Then start to concentrate on the off line aspect. Most people do not think of the HUGE opportunity with traditional media. Even if your just working all the local social spots dropping your card on cork boards and putting up a flier here and there. These all return very nicely for the work. Besides you could be attracting people who have never heard of your product or niche by getting out of the virtual world and into the real world. Advertising Off line is a gold mine and just like your on-line venture can cost as much or as little as you want.
Think of your online landing zone as a store front. Now think of all the ways traditional business has advertised in the past. Print, Radio, Television, Billboard, Inserts, Direct mail, and of course your local door to door distribution methods.
Before you make the plunge into off line marketing make sure your site is chock full of relevant content which is up to date and interesting. Make sure all your links are cloaked and active. Make sure your back up is functioning and you have a good back up. The new traffic might be a strain or you may attract the attention of some ass hat so be ready. Surely by now you are monetized in such a manner that you will be able to capitalize on this newfound off line marketing racket.
Your best bet is to start with Print type media. Read that as newspapers, your local trade paper, some magazines, etc. This will give your one edge as many people who read, guess what they also surf the web. Time to give them something to do. Remember according to niche again. For example if you run an awesome golf blog reviewing the latest golf products and all that snazz then you will want to target golf classifieds, golf magazines. You get the point.
If your worried about designing an off line ad check your yellow pages for a local ad agency often for very cheap you can have a very targeted top notch ad made to run in multiple publications for a very long time.
Inserts are another wonderful way to get the word out. Although they are for the most part the most annoying and often ignored of all the off line marketing if you can disguise it as an information product instead you will get that “click through” in the real world the same way. Include some factual information about your niche and then relay that you can offer service however or whatever it may be with your own hook.
Next you should think about writing articles which are in fact advertising in disguise. Content submission will definitely add another prong to our proverbial advertising pitch fork. These you may have to work at very hard depending on your niche. Their are plenty of magazines and trade publications out there which accept these with open arms.
Television and Radio are going to be your next target. Before you think about spending a single penny on this type of venture the first thing you need to have is a very very memorable URL. Also whatever it is you are marketing should make sense for this type of placement. One thing you will notice with this form of off line advertising is that the sales people will be much more willing to help you out. You will probably want some professional voice acting amongst other things depending on your product and budget. A full length infomercial is totally not necessary. Usually you will be able to target the demographics you want to much easier this way as the service or station you are using will be able to relay the details of this as that is their business.
Radio is still hot despite the rave that some will put out about its dilapidated state. Realize that your local talk and local genre stations are not replaceable. They also would love to advertise for you. If you can do a pod cast then you can produce one of these types of advertisements all by yourself. Ultimately your going to be targeting a niche and if you have a product worth viewing you can bet this crowd will stop by to see what it is all about.
The last type of off line advertising I will cover today is basically a door to door or car to car method, you know those people that usually drop off the special of the week pizza coupons? Yea thats it. Make sure you are creating a very polite advertisement and be courteous to the environment. Do not over do this as this can create a hostile attitude about whatever it is your offering. Thats not what you want trust me.
Thats all their is to it really just pounding the ground for what you love. I advise starting small toss some business cards and fliers in prominent places and see what happens. Then move on to other things. Another good idea is sponsoring some beach umbrellas, or having some small adverts put up on the movie screen before a movie in your local theater. You would be surprised at the results that could be had.
Let me know how you market off line, or if you find any of these methods to be successful. Feedback is great and we all will benefit from it.
I like the tips, really helpful, but some of them, aren’t they a bit expensive? I’ll let you know if they work. (If I try them) Also I will stumble this.
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They could be expensive. It really depends on the size of your operation which would ultimately dictate the budget you have to use. For instance I will be placing cards, some fliers and things of that nature. Lets see how it goes.