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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
auto responder 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.
Copyright 2004 Jeff Schuman
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
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