Offline Marketing Techniques to Build Your Business
| Category: Selling Techniques | Date: 2001-06-29 |
Are you focusing all of your marketing efforts on the internet community alone? If so you are passing up a huge audience of PAYING customers who are anxious to learn about the new world of E-Commerce and are ready, willing and able to spend for the products and services you offer online.
Many internet marketers are spending too much time and money trying to sell to the jaded internet savvy individual. You see, such individuals will sometimes avoid paying for a product or service (even if it will build their business) and stubbornly search for a free alternative.
However, the offline world is full of people who are very interested in purchasing products and services being sold online. You should get your products and services in front of this audience as soon as possible and begin converting these offline prospects into online customers.
Here are 4 proven methods to get your message to these hot prospects now:
Send out press releases to the media:
The media is starving for stories about the internet and their audience continuously clamors for more. Furthermore, people will respond much more positively to an article or radio report about your website than they would to an advertisement. Why?
Well, traditionally people have been known to believe everything in the news and an article or report about your website is like a personal endorsement of your products or services by the media. Therefore, you gain credibility as a result and people are more likely to visit your site and buy from you.
How many of you visit websites when you hear a radio report or read a newspaper article about them? I bet more than 90% of you respond. As a matter of fact, statistics show that most people learn about websites through traditional media i.e. TV, radio or newspapers. If you can get the free publicity that a press release will generate for you, you may very well be on your way to some hefty traffic.
In order for a press release to be picked up by the media, it must be well crafted, timely, and full of benefits for the audience of a particular publication. It must also be targeted to the publication you submitted to. In other words, don't submit a press release about a golf website to Cosmopolitan. However, if you submit that press release to Golf Magazine, chances are your press release will be picked up.
If you are not experienced in crafting press releases, I recommend that you hire someone who is. Ideally, this company or individual will understand the internet, your targeted market and how to distribute your press release to targeted media. One of the best companies for this is XpressPress. You could find out more about them here: Press release experts
Submit articles to targeted publications:
If you are good at writing articles related to your products or services, I recommend that you write an article and submit it to highly targeted magazines or trade publications that cater to the market you wish to reach.
If any of you sell online marketing related products, there are many publications in this field that welcome articles from freelance writers. This is an excellent opportunity to promote your website, products and services to their subscribers for free.
Submit articles to Entrepreneur, Success, Home Office Computing and any other home business or direct marketing magazines. This audience is starving for information about making money online. And unlike those who have been online for a while and claim to be know-it-alls, they are open-minded and free from the typical, cynical internet mindset. Moreover, they have money to spend and unlike the miserly freebie seekers on the web, they are more than willing to spend it.
A recent issue of Home Income Opportunities magazine that I read contained articles that were all written by outside sources. I noticed that every one of them had a focus on the internet and every contributing author was able to plug their website in their resource box.
Promotional material:
Self promotion is king! If you don't speak highly of yourself and your business, who will?
Have any of you visited a car dealership because the license plate of a nice looking car you drove behind promoted the dealership where the car was bought? This is a form of free advertising for the car dealers.
There is an ingenious method for advertising your site on the back of your car that models itself after this concept. ID-It Plates are custom designed chrome plates that spell out your domain name and can be attached to the back of your car as free promotion for you wherever you go. If you have a catchy site name, such as my friend Adam Katz who is a dog trainer and has the domain name dogproblems.com, the potential for interested visitors to come knocking at your website doors is enormous.
ID-It Plates are an inexpensive and unique way to spread the word about your site offline, click here for more information about them: ID-It Plates
Other promotional items such as shirts, mousepads, bumper stickers, and business cards all have the potential to bring people to your site who may otherwise never have known about it.
Here is another nifty and inexpensive idea that I would use to promote my business offline. Have some customized post-it notes created with your URL and email address on them. Everytime you pay a bill or send out a letter, write a personalized note on one of the post-its, drop it in with the bill or letter, and sooner than ever your site will begin to receive traffic from interested and curious recipients.
Finally, there is a Real Estate Agent I recently read about who often drives through toll booths and pays the toll for the car behind him. He then asks the clerk to please give the driver of that particular car his business card. Say you were that driver in the car behind, do you think after learning about what the driver in front did for you, you would not be in the least bit curious about this person and might quite possibly want to thank him. I bet you would also tell all your friends and family about this person. Do you think that this Real Estate Agent drums up business for himself this way? Well believe me when I tell you he most certainly does.
There is a website that will create and customize all manner of promotional items for you at a very reasonable price. Iprint is cheaper than most print shops and delivers top quality work that you can order online.
Card Deck Advertising:
I cannot say enough good things about this form of advertising. It is not cheap, but it is one of the most effective methods to reach a targeted audience offline.
For 2 years now, I have received Jeffrey Lant's Worldprofit Card Deck. While I am not a fan of Dr. Lant's manner or personality, his ability to turn a buck is without equal. Many people buy space in his card decks because they get excellent responses from them. I am an avid student of any marketing method that works, so I studied Dr. Lant's card deck and noticed that many of the same people buy up to 10 cards in one deck. This is unbelievable, especially since he charges in the thousands to advertise on one card. I suspect they have received exceptional responses from their card deck advertising in the past, and are hedging their bets by buying as many cards as they can in order to stand out and reach the maximum amount of people.
How can you benefit from card deck advertising? First of all, card decks are not for everyone. The only card decks I have ever seen were targeted to an audience interested in marketing and home business opportunities. So if you sell flowers or T-shirts, I suggest you ignore this method of advertising and pursue the others mentioned in this article. However, If you sell products or services that are targeted to this audience, you should pay even closer attention to me here.
I advertised in Nicholas Schmidt's card deck twice and received over 800 subscribers to this newsletter and many sales from my efforts. The Profitstream Card Deck is unique in that you not only get the ability to advertise your website to over 1 million interested prospects, but you also get to share in the subscription responses that Nicholas receives. This will allow you to follow up on these leads, offer subscriptions to your opt-in newsletter and/or attract visitors to your website.
Card Decks produce exceptional results for their participants. Profitstream usually puts out a new card deck every season, so expect a new one to be available shortly. I'll certainly be advertising there. Will you?
I hope that I have opened your eyes to a few of the many opportunities available for you to advertise your website to a more responsive, less cynical offline audience. It does not require much work on your part to reach this audience; it does however require some ingenuity. These people are hungry for online offerings and are also extremely anxious to learn how to start and market a business online. They may be your next customers, go get them now!
About the Author
Article by Marc Goldman, Goldbar Enterprises subscribe to The Marketers Resource Weekly: The Free Internet Marketing Resource for the New Millennium. Subscribe at goldbar.net Discover the exclusive members only website that will propel your business to dizzying heights.
:To contact see details below.
webmaster@goldbar.net
http://www.goldbar.net
Many internet marketers are spending too much time and money trying to sell to the jaded internet savvy individual. You see, such individuals will sometimes avoid paying for a product or service (even if it will build their business) and stubbornly search for a free alternative.
However, the offline world is full of people who are very interested in purchasing products and services being sold online. You should get your products and services in front of this audience as soon as possible and begin converting these offline prospects into online customers.
Here are 4 proven methods to get your message to these hot prospects now:
Send out press releases to the media:
The media is starving for stories about the internet and their audience continuously clamors for more. Furthermore, people will respond much more positively to an article or radio report about your website than they would to an advertisement. Why?
Well, traditionally people have been known to believe everything in the news and an article or report about your website is like a personal endorsement of your products or services by the media. Therefore, you gain credibility as a result and people are more likely to visit your site and buy from you.
How many of you visit websites when you hear a radio report or read a newspaper article about them? I bet more than 90% of you respond. As a matter of fact, statistics show that most people learn about websites through traditional media i.e. TV, radio or newspapers. If you can get the free publicity that a press release will generate for you, you may very well be on your way to some hefty traffic.
In order for a press release to be picked up by the media, it must be well crafted, timely, and full of benefits for the audience of a particular publication. It must also be targeted to the publication you submitted to. In other words, don't submit a press release about a golf website to Cosmopolitan. However, if you submit that press release to Golf Magazine, chances are your press release will be picked up.
If you are not experienced in crafting press releases, I recommend that you hire someone who is. Ideally, this company or individual will understand the internet, your targeted market and how to distribute your press release to targeted media. One of the best companies for this is XpressPress. You could find out more about them here: Press release experts
Submit articles to targeted publications:
If you are good at writing articles related to your products or services, I recommend that you write an article and submit it to highly targeted magazines or trade publications that cater to the market you wish to reach.
If any of you sell online marketing related products, there are many publications in this field that welcome articles from freelance writers. This is an excellent opportunity to promote your website, products and services to their subscribers for free.
Submit articles to Entrepreneur, Success, Home Office Computing and any other home business or direct marketing magazines. This audience is starving for information about making money online. And unlike those who have been online for a while and claim to be know-it-alls, they are open-minded and free from the typical, cynical internet mindset. Moreover, they have money to spend and unlike the miserly freebie seekers on the web, they are more than willing to spend it.
A recent issue of Home Income Opportunities magazine that I read contained articles that were all written by outside sources. I noticed that every one of them had a focus on the internet and every contributing author was able to plug their website in their resource box.
Promotional material:
Self promotion is king! If you don't speak highly of yourself and your business, who will?
Have any of you visited a car dealership because the license plate of a nice looking car you drove behind promoted the dealership where the car was bought? This is a form of free advertising for the car dealers.
There is an ingenious method for advertising your site on the back of your car that models itself after this concept. ID-It Plates are custom designed chrome plates that spell out your domain name and can be attached to the back of your car as free promotion for you wherever you go. If you have a catchy site name, such as my friend Adam Katz who is a dog trainer and has the domain name dogproblems.com, the potential for interested visitors to come knocking at your website doors is enormous.
ID-It Plates are an inexpensive and unique way to spread the word about your site offline, click here for more information about them: ID-It Plates
Other promotional items such as shirts, mousepads, bumper stickers, and business cards all have the potential to bring people to your site who may otherwise never have known about it.
Here is another nifty and inexpensive idea that I would use to promote my business offline. Have some customized post-it notes created with your URL and email address on them. Everytime you pay a bill or send out a letter, write a personalized note on one of the post-its, drop it in with the bill or letter, and sooner than ever your site will begin to receive traffic from interested and curious recipients.
Finally, there is a Real Estate Agent I recently read about who often drives through toll booths and pays the toll for the car behind him. He then asks the clerk to please give the driver of that particular car his business card. Say you were that driver in the car behind, do you think after learning about what the driver in front did for you, you would not be in the least bit curious about this person and might quite possibly want to thank him. I bet you would also tell all your friends and family about this person. Do you think that this Real Estate Agent drums up business for himself this way? Well believe me when I tell you he most certainly does.
There is a website that will create and customize all manner of promotional items for you at a very reasonable price. Iprint is cheaper than most print shops and delivers top quality work that you can order online.
Card Deck Advertising:
I cannot say enough good things about this form of advertising. It is not cheap, but it is one of the most effective methods to reach a targeted audience offline.
For 2 years now, I have received Jeffrey Lant's Worldprofit Card Deck. While I am not a fan of Dr. Lant's manner or personality, his ability to turn a buck is without equal. Many people buy space in his card decks because they get excellent responses from them. I am an avid student of any marketing method that works, so I studied Dr. Lant's card deck and noticed that many of the same people buy up to 10 cards in one deck. This is unbelievable, especially since he charges in the thousands to advertise on one card. I suspect they have received exceptional responses from their card deck advertising in the past, and are hedging their bets by buying as many cards as they can in order to stand out and reach the maximum amount of people.
How can you benefit from card deck advertising? First of all, card decks are not for everyone. The only card decks I have ever seen were targeted to an audience interested in marketing and home business opportunities. So if you sell flowers or T-shirts, I suggest you ignore this method of advertising and pursue the others mentioned in this article. However, If you sell products or services that are targeted to this audience, you should pay even closer attention to me here.
I advertised in Nicholas Schmidt's card deck twice and received over 800 subscribers to this newsletter and many sales from my efforts. The Profitstream Card Deck is unique in that you not only get the ability to advertise your website to over 1 million interested prospects, but you also get to share in the subscription responses that Nicholas receives. This will allow you to follow up on these leads, offer subscriptions to your opt-in newsletter and/or attract visitors to your website.
Card Decks produce exceptional results for their participants. Profitstream usually puts out a new card deck every season, so expect a new one to be available shortly. I'll certainly be advertising there. Will you?
I hope that I have opened your eyes to a few of the many opportunities available for you to advertise your website to a more responsive, less cynical offline audience. It does not require much work on your part to reach this audience; it does however require some ingenuity. These people are hungry for online offerings and are also extremely anxious to learn how to start and market a business online. They may be your next customers, go get them now!
About the Author
Article by Marc Goldman, Goldbar Enterprises subscribe to The Marketers Resource Weekly: The Free Internet Marketing Resource for the New Millennium. Subscribe at goldbar.net Discover the exclusive members only website that will propel your business to dizzying heights.
:To contact see details below.
webmaster@goldbar.net
http://www.goldbar.net
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