How
To Effectively Use Offline Advertising To Build Your
Online Business
by: Jeff
Schuman
Copyright
2004 Jeff Schuman
First of all let me say that having spent the past 20 years working closely
with small businesses I know exactly what works when it comes to offline
advertising.
What I have found today is that online businesses have a built in advantage
when it comes to promoting their business offline. You already have a website
and autoresponder in place to lead your prospect to. When you combine that
fact along with the traditional capture methods of telephone and snail mail
there is no reason any online business can't use offline methods to build
their businesses and sell their products and services.
A lot of online based businesses forget about offline advertising. I know I
have. It is important to combine offline and online advertising together in
your marketing campaign. This will give you to a more well rounded approach to
promoting as well as attract potential prospects and customers you might not
otherwise get.
In all your offline advertising you want to include your web site address,
e-mail or autoresponder addresses, and your phone number and mailing address.
This gives you the appearance of a real bonafide business.
Another thing is to start selling products for manufacturers who offer co-op
advertising for promoting their products. You can read a little more about
this technique in an article I wrote titled "Why Are You Wasting Free
Advertising Money?"
http://sites-plus.com/articles/article2.html
Finally you need to view offline marketing as a long term committment. I've
seen businesses over and over run and ad not get the response they were
looking for and quit.
This will not work offline. Or online for that matter. You need to establish a
budget and stick to it. That doesn't mean that you can't change the ad copy if
your response is marginal. It just means if you are going to run classified
ads for example that you run them for a period of time and allow them to do
their job.
Here are 10 offline marketing ideas. Use as many of these as possible to move
your business forward.
-Classified Newspaper Ads- Place classified ads in newspapers. Local
newspapers often have great advertising rates that you can take advantage of
to promote your business. Here's a great source for running classified ads.
http://www.nationwideadvertising.com
-Put up flyers. They could be in computer stores, libraries, restaurants, car
windshields, or anywhere you shop that allows flyers.
-Direct mail. A nice direct mail piece when done consistently over a period of
time can bring tremendous exposure for your business. The biggest benefit of
direct mail is it allows you to reach thousands of people at a bulk mail rate.
You could not do this if you had to mail each piece individually.
-Buy time on local cable T.V. It is surprisingly affordable and if you commit
to a block of advertising you can develop Top Of Mind Awareness. TOMA is being
there when they want or need you. If you are an affiliate or in an MLM
consider doing group advertising and spreading the cost out over several of
you. You can have leads routed into one phone number and divied out to all
advertisers or have each ad display a different phone number.
-Pass out your CD-ROM or diskette business cards at special events. It could
be at trade shows, seminars, fairs, etc.
-Get 250 free business cards here and leave them everywhere you go.
http://www.vistaprint.com
-Hold a free offline class and teach people how to use their computer or how
to use the internet. You could have your web site on display as an example.
-Give away promotional items such as free mouse pads. Put your advertising on
the mouse pads and give them away at computer or internet events.
-Advertise in card decks. The card deck you advertise in should be targeted
toward internet users.
You would also want to target your offline advertising to groups of people
that will actually be interested in your product or service. If you're selling
business books, you will want to market to business owners.
In conclusion, if you have a business that's only based online using offline
advertising to make money online is a great idea because so many people today
go online to get information about products and services they are interested
in.
About the author:
Jeff Schuman is a 20 year veteran of sales and marketing and has made over $35
million dollars in sales in that time. His Team-Schuman.Com website contains
the Top 5 work at home websites, make money fast websites, make money
articles, a free classified ad service and more. Visit it here today: http://www.Team-Schuman.com
