Promoting your website offline is just as important as an online
marketing campaign. There are still lot’s of potential customers who don’t
know how to use the internet effectively. Some people get baffled just
looking at the results page that the search engines return after searching
for a product or service. Others are only casual users, and will navigate
the web only by clicking on links that are available on screen, or by
typing the address of a website directly into the address bar. In order to
reach these customers, and many others, you must implement an offline
promotional campaign. You’re URL or website address is obviously the key
here. The more exposure your URL receives the more traffic you will send
to your website. So what can you do to get your website address out into
the offline world?
Company Documentation
A good place to start is to look at what can be changed within your own
organization to promote your new website address. Company documentation
should be the first thing you add your URL to, after your website of
course. Letter headed paper, compliments slips, business cards, invoices,
etc should all bare your URL. Even print it on your envelopes. Only the
addressee usually sees the content of a letter, but how many people see
the actual envelope?
Company Vehicles
How many vans, lorries and cars do you see everyday with phone numbers and
company names plastered all over them. Your website address can be added
to any part of your vehicle with a sticker, this exposes your URL to
thousands of people everyday who are driving to work, going to the shops
or even walking the dog. Make sure that you have this done professionally
though. If it looks badly designed, it will probably reflect badly on your
company.
Newspapers and Magazines
These are a very good source of advertising because so many people use
them. It can be quite expensive to run full page color adverts in the
national papers and glossy magazines, but you can start small. As a first
step, you could try running a small advert in the classified section of
your local papers. As your traffic and your business grow, you can move on
to the larger national papers. Also, it would be worth finding out what
sort of cost is involved in advertising in publications that gear more
towards your specific product or service. This way you have more of a
chance of reaching your target audience.
Radio
This type of advertising can be very effective. The national radio
stations reach out to millions of people all over the country, but can be
quite expensive. You can start by checking the local radio stations. They
can offer good value for money advertising. Remember though, the price you
pay will depend upon the time of day and how often your advertisement is
aired.
Television
Probably one of the most expensive forms of advertising due to its massive
audience, especially on prime time T.V. Usually only the big businesses
with massive advertising budgets use television, but there is an
alternative. Advertising on local cable television channels can bring in a
lot of business. It is relatively well priced and because it’s on TV can
give the impression that your company is bigger and more successful than
it actually is.
Branded ‘Stuff’
Placing your website address on items such as pens, pencils, badges, mouse
mats, cups and t-shirts etc can be a very effective advertising tool.
These products are usually given away for free, but the returns can be
well worth the initial outlay. It’s worth targeting specific markets that
will use your product. It’s a waste of resources when you give a hundred
branded t-shirts to a naturalist colony. Try giving a pack of pens to a
local business that might use your product or services, or some mouse mats
to a local college. You never know who will see your brand.
Word of Mouth
This can work both positively and negatively. The only way to get positive
word of mouth advertising is to provide an exceptional product or service.
Don’t lie and cheat your way through as this will come back to haunt you.
Be professional, courteous and honest, and the rest will look after
itself. If a person likes what you do they will tell six others. If a
person is disappointed with what you do, they will tell twenty others.
So there you have it. Just a few ideas related to offline promotion. If
your whole marketing campaign is purely online, you could be missing out
on a massive portion of your customer base. Get your name out there in the
real world and start to reap the benefits. The effort is well worth it.
Martin Bradley is the Creative Director at Bullbreed
Design Studio. He has worked within the design industry for over 7 years
and has worked for some very prestigious clients such as; British
Aerospace, T-Mobile, Orange, Vodafone, and Aston Martin.
http://www.bullbreed.com
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