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Effective Coffee Shop Marketing Ideas

How To Track Your Offline Marketing Efforts

Marketing, in any form, should always be administered in a way that makes it possible to receive comprehensive data that determine the effectiveness of each marketing campaign such as direct mail, TV ads, newspaper ads, and more. This method is coined in many business circles as tracking, and it is something that you need to do to go far in your marketing efforts.

Marketing campaigns require money. As a businessman, your job is to earn an amount that exceeds your marketing expenditures. Otherwise, all efforts that were made will be a total waste.

Tracking offline marketing efforts is a task that needs to be undertaken in any type of business – be it an old one or a new one. In fact, tracking is most crucial when the business is just starting out, since all the gathered information from the beginning to the present can help create a more comprehensive graph. This makes it easier for you to make the correct decisions as far as the allocation of marketing funds is concerned. As a result, your marketing campaigns become less costly and more effective in providing you good results.

Here are two methods that can help you track your offline marketing efforts.

Tracking Print and Direct Mail Marketing Online Once you’ve launched an offline marketing campaign, you’d do better to produce multiple ads. These ads should not be identical when it comes to slogans and the call to action text. This is because you still need to determine which advertisement can produce the best results.

So how do we segregate the results of each advertisement in a way that can be used for comparative data? It’s really simple: use designated domains. Using the log files, the designated domains can help you track the visitors of your website. Make sure that you assign a respective landing page to each of the designated domains in order to funnel each piece of information correctly. To understand how this works, I’ll show you how it looks like. As an example, let’s assume that the business has something to do with slot cars.

Direct Mail Text 1 – Tracking Domain – TheGreatSlotCars.com Ad 1 – Tracking Domain – VisitYourGreatSlotCars.com Ad 2 – Tracking Domain – YourGreatSlotCarsOnline.com

If you notice, each advert leads to a unique URL. Once you’ve gathered all the results, you’d be able to determine which advertisement enticed the most people and which one produced the least.

Of course, it’s possible that extraneous variables can influence the outcome. These are rather theoretical, so what I can advise you is add some notes detailing these variables. These notes can come in handy in the future when the time comes you are required to do a business review.

The same method can be used in several types of marketing campaigns such as TV commercials, telephone calls, radio ads and newsprint media. Just apply the same principle depending on the technicalities involved in the type of campaign. If you track your offline marketing efforts, taking pains in recording data both big and small, they can help you determine what works and what doesn’t and might help you think of a groundbreaking business idea. In the long run, this should bode well for your advertising campaign and help your business go beyond your expectations.

Helpful List Of Marketing Internet Business Offline

We have to admit that the internet is so vast and filled with enormous information from almost all facets of life. This gives lesser chances for your website to get good number of traffics. Thus it is imperative if not suggestive to work out marketing by employing some traditional means. What follows below are my top ten effective tips for offline advertisement that would increase the traffics of your website.

Flyers: the most common form of print advertisement. This includes brochure, leaflets, posters and other printed promotional material. You can either float it on public places or post it on public bulletins. Vehicles are also good medium by pasting attractive and visible promotional posters and stickers on it. People get to learn about your business while the vehicle is in traffic or parked.

Business Card: its size could easily finds a space on one’s wallet which gives a more lasting effect on advertisement. It could be keep and retrieve whenever need arises. How it is made also compels someone to some extent to keep it.

Giveaways and Freebies: you must know what are the common and basic things usually used by a good number of people and have those things customized and printed with promotional labels such as your website, line of business and business motto. The most common promotional giveaways nowadays are bags, umbrella, pens, t-shirt, caps and many more.

DVD and VCD. Create a video of your business and let it play during trade fairs, shows and other business events. To some extent, it could also serve as a giveaways and freebies.

Informatials: you could also invest a little bit by purchasing commercial time slots on TV and cable network. Check the time slots and look for those on “sale” meaning they are bargained so that the time slots could be filled. What you have in your DVD or VCD may serve as material for TV commercials. But if you wish to have another, then there is no problem with that provided that you have enough resources.

Newspapers: with minimal investment, you could boost your website traffic by having it printed on classified ads.

Billboards: nowadays this particular mode of advertisement is already utilized by some internet business. Although this is a little bit expensive but effects are promising since they are strategically placed in public areas that would definitely draw attention.

Trade fair: join and participate any business events. You can set up a booth that will serve as information corner about your website.

Organization. Join associations that approximately close to your line of business. It would be a possible venue locate partners who could help you with your business.

Voicemail: it is also a good thing to market your business by including your website address on your voicemails. This would attract and re-direct the caller to look on your website. In this case, you could still possibly market despite the missed call.

You may keep this list and try to incorporate it with your marketing methods. The idea is to exhaust all means we have, be it offline or online to achieve successful business. But as the common saying says that two heads are better than one, so an integration of offline strategies will definitely makes a difference in doing internet business.

Good Tips And Options For Starting Business On Advertisement

It is undeniable that the usual mode of advertisement is still a potent tool for businessmen despite the presence of online system. As a matter of fact, even internet businesses such as eBay’s and amazon.com employ and integrate offline forms of marketing. This preference opens the opportunity for starting a promising business in offline advertisement. And for those who are interested to venture on this line of business, I have some of the tips and things you should need and have for a good start.

Although this is something personal, I always consider one’s interest and commitment as necessary in doing any business. Everything follows if one is determine to succeed. Attitude will greatly affect discernment on things crucial in doing business.

For a small set up, you need computer set and specialized printer and printing materials, scanner and your knowledge in Photoshop or any other related application. These tools are responsible for the production of posters, fliers, brochures, and other promotional materials. You could convert your garage or a small space of your house into business office. The feasible target client could be those whom you already know, like your friends and neighbors. From them, they may refer you to others.

Take note than when starting a business with this kind of set up, expect very little profit because you need to offer affordable and cheaper quality service. Otherwise, you’re not going to make it on this industry if you parallel your price to other established ones. Don’t worry, this is only on the start while carving and establishing your name in the industry. One tip to minimize your production cost is to buy your materials in wholesale basis. Also, be creative to maximize what you have by means of applying the 3 R’s (reuse, recycle, and reduce).

If you’re successful with making brochure and other printed materials, you may expand by including t-shirt printing and promotional giveaways and souvenirs (e.g. umbrellas, pens, cups, accessories and other things with promotional labels). Some of the things you need here are t-shirt printers, compressor for button pins, and others depending on what you will make. Always remember the rule of the thumb, when expanding always make your new offered service affordable.

If your family has one or more vehicles, then turn that one into a marketing vehicle and earn extra income. Offer it as an ad space for rent. Asked clients to post colorful magnetic stickers or you may even provide the ads for your clients. This will definitely attract attention. Knowledge on strategic places or market is necessary with this kind of marketing business so you will know when and where to drive your vehicle. For taxi owners, this is a definitely a good add-on on your income. Make your cabs an advertising transportation.

For those who have the capital to arrest big clients, the principle also applies. Make the products and services affordable but good quality. Usually, the most promising investment would be mass media. These are responsible for creating Informatials, and TV ads. But I would not be discussing the details of this line of marketing due to broadness and complicatedness, which requires more elaboration. But what I could suggest for those who have the capital is to see to it that the offer or service has a unique twist from the existing forms.

Marketing is integral in any line of business. Since you want to engage and play that integral necessity of business, you must be focused and observant in all the events around you as this would gave you the ideas you will need to maintain competitiveness.

Always remember that all things comes from simple. So it is highly suggested to aim for simple beginning and from there you can expand. Take note also that come what may, if you have the passion and correct attitude in this line of business, you will definitely succeed. So try some of those I have listed above. Good luck.

5 Proven Offline Marketing Methods For Newbies

We’re currently in the Information Age – an era where information is shared among people almost at the speed of light. This, of course, was made possibly through the Internet. As more and more people are getting online, online marketing has reached a level in a way that marketers from decades ago can only ever dream of. With that in mind, many marketers have used the Internet as a powerful medium to market their products and services that they completely shelved the notion of using the ever reliable method of offline marketing.

This is a grave mistake any marketer shouldn’t commit, since offline marketing is as essential as it was decades ago. It is also made more significant if used hand in hand with online marketing. To bolster your marketing efforts, here are important offline marketing methods to help you out.

Direct mailing is a method that is no less effective as it was before even with the current popularity of emails. Direct mail comes in the form of flyers, brochures, letters and postcards. You can also create your own hard copies on your own printer to reduce costs. Mailing postcards are also cheaper than mailing letters and fliers, so make sure that make use of this method to maximize your capital.

One avenue where you can focus your direct mails is the brick and mortar businesses. This is obvious for the fact that an actual physical establishment can have offline marketing materials that employees can read at their own leisure. So don’t forget to include these establishments in your recipients list when you distribute your direct mails.

Conducting seminars, workshops and symposiums can go a long way into making your business more visible, and at the same time, showcase your expertise on matters concerning your niche. If you are able to build a reputation in the industry you’re part of, word will spread, and this in turn will help make your product a household name.

You can also advertise in newspapers and magazines. This type of offline marketing campaign can cost you some money, so you’ll have to tread carefully and make use of your budget wisely. The key here is to choose the right publications that will advertise your product. To do this, you have to pick the ones that distribute their papers at a high volume. If local, pick those whose area of distribution has a large population. Another important thing: since the popularity of the Internet, magazine and newspaper readership has dwindled, and I would recommend having the ads printed only on Sundays to improve visibility.

Charity events are a great opportunity to showcase your product. As one of the sponsors, your brand’s logo can be displayed on all their advertising materials. One rule of thumb is that your website’s URL should be displayed as well. Do this, and the amount of exposure your product will get will be considerable.

Finally, you can use yourself as your own product’s advertisement, much like what a mascot does for a company. No, you don’t have to wear silly costumes. Wearing a T-shirt with your site’s URL printed on it, as well as a car sticker with the same effect, should suffice. When you are your own advertisement, you can execute your offline marketing campaign on a more personal level.

8 Offline Marketing Ideas

…That Could Bring In Revenue To Your Online Business

Before businesses converted to online marketing, the bread and butter marketing and advertising techniques are mostly focused on traditional marketing or what is not called as offline marketing. These 8 offline marketing ideas have been around for years and have been proven time and again to bring in revenue to any business whenever they are well-placed and well-timed.

Classified ads Ad placing on any local or national newspapers – if your pockets could afford that – can give your website traffic or sales a really good boost. How? Apparently, people still read newspapers and trust the things they read on print media. And with this same level of trust, people view newspaper ads as something that they can be confident about. Online businesses that have placed ads on newspapers have benefited from the great advertising rates of this medium.

Flyers and Posters There’s a good reason why small and large companies alike still use flyers as part of their marketing campaigns. They work and they work really well. Place flyers somewhere with good traffic and watch as traffic get diverted to your website.

Direct Mail The offline version of opt-in email listing and email marketing, offline direct mail is a marketing method that directly contacts individual and inform them of your website’s presence. When done consistently and with good email pieces, this strategy can help with brand awareness. This may even result to instant sales.

Infomercials While this could turn out to be quite expensive, infomercials are actually very effective means to enhance brand awareness and to increase market reach. Since most infomercials run consistently over a long period of time, these often allow for some curiosity on the part of viewers. If you don’t have enough budget for infomercials, try group advertising. This will spread the cost between you and your partners.

Business Cards These are possibly the least expensive of all marketing strategies. Give your business cards to anyone you meet and leave them anywhere you go. The results may not be instantaneous, but in time, your cards could bring in revenue for your online business.

Give Free Information If you are an expert in a field relevant to your business, you could try to be a free learning resource. You could do this by holding a free offline class. Radio and TV shows are also good mediums as these could reach a wider spectrum of audience. If you can, try to get an interview over the radio or on a TV show.

Freebies and Giveaways Giving away promotional items is still alive and well. Next to business cards, this strategy is probably the second least expensive. The cost of this offline marketing strategy could run up to a few hundred dollars or more though if you’re giving away expensive free items.

Network with Other Local Business Owners The chamber of commerce as well as other local business associations are powerful tools to expand your network. Connections mean better opportunities. Try to get as many connection as you can by attending local business owners meetings and conferences.

Benefits Of Offline Marketing

The recent surge in popularity of the Internet has led many to believe that offline marketing is a thing of the past. Dead wrong. Sure, it can’t be denied that online marketing can help bolster a business and catapult it to new heights, but while more and more people are logging in to the Internet, there are still billions of people who still haven’t had the inclination or the resources to do so.

Go to a city and look around you. Billboards, flyer, newsprints and other advertising mediums still surround us; a large portion of the populace still relies on the Television and the radio to entertain them selves. This proves that the influence of TV ads and radio ads still has the same effect on consumers as it had before. Even up to this day when online marketing has hit its stride, offline marketing, still, has advantages its online counterpart couldn’t have.

Brand Awareness Most people are more likely to trust products that they have seen offline. This is pretty understandable if you take into account the amount of scams that have proliferated over the Internet. Offline advertisements also seem to give a more “tangible” effect on people, since they are more traceable to something that is deeply rooted in reality. This is not to say that online ads are a figment of our imagination, but you have to admit that the companies that turn up offline ads have a more profound sense of accountability since you can directly contact the TV stations, radio stations, or the publishing house that have agreed to display those ads.

Another great thing about offline marketing is that you yourself can be your own walking advertisement. A T-shirt displaying your brand name and its accompanying slogan is a powerful advertising material, especially if you are always out and about and interact with lots of people. If you travel by car frequently, a car sticker can be extremely helpful in increasing awareness of your products and services.

This one is also extremely important: never forget to place the URL of your website on your ads. It will be a total waste if your ads are able to grab the attention of consumers only to have them scratching their heads in the task of trying to find out how they can avail of your products.

A Vast Market Reach As has been mentioned earlier in this article, there are still a lot of people who have never logged in to the Internet. Internet users comprise only a small portion of the demographics. To remedy this situation, offline marketing needs to be administered in order to fill in the gaps.

Packs More Punch The tangible aspect of offline marketing also provides you a lot of room to use your creativity and imagination. For example, you can set up your own booth in a country fair, maybe hire some mascots or entertainers, or maybe set up a contest where many people will be introduced to your product while they’re having fun at the same time.

Contrary to popular belief, and as proven by the points made in this article, you’d do well to use offline marketing methods in order to improve brand awareness, increase market reach, and have more leeway for creativity. If executed well, offline marketing can catapult your business into new heights.

Cheap Offline Marketing Ideas

Is offline marketing already on the verge of dying out? Apparently, it is not. As much as the Internet continues to lure small and large businesses to promote their products online, the traditional methods are still considered by many as the surest and most economical of them all.

In an uncertain economy, entrepreneurs are skeptical in putting up their own businesses due to fear of not being patronized well by the people. How can they gain the people’s trust if they don’t have the money and machinery to promote their products?

The beauty in offline marketing is that your products can be acknowledged without even spending a penny. You can achieve success in a thriving business even if you only have a small advertising budget, coupled of course with creativity and hard work.

The following are cheap, and even free, offline marketing ideas that can surely boost your product’s sales.

Word of Mouth

This method is by far the cheapest and most effective offline marketing tool that everyone can surely utilize. Nothing beats the nice things that people say about your products. Referrals from your family, friends and colleagues are enough reasons to build on a solid reputation and establish the credibility that the people are always looking for.

Before you even realize it, these words have already spread like virus to strangers who are now starting to get acquainted with your products. Just continue to establish good relationships with these people and they will reward you again with their own referrals. This process could go on and on while you’re cashing in sales. Now didn’t I say that this method is free?

Handouts

Another inexpensive way of promoting your products is to distribute handouts such as flyers, newsletters and business cards to the people within and outside your community. For you to save money, you can do the design of these materials yourself on your computer, and then spend a small amount of money for the printing costs. Tag your friends along to disseminate these materials and wait for responses from interested customers.

Branding

Exposing these advertising materials in your everyday endeavors is also a helpful way to promote your product without you making a huge deal of effort. Put these flyers on your car or even print your product’s URL on your shirt and you’ll most likely attract leads everywhere you go. Just imagine spending a small amount for these materials and exerting some effort in exchange for bigger sales conversions.

Telecommunication

Are you not in the mood to go out to distribute some flyers? Well, there’s still another alternative for you to make the public know your product. If you have a landline or a mobile phone, then you can easily get in touch with your friends and other acquaintances and tell them about your latest business venture. Talking to them over the phone is better than sending out an email. They might even suspect that the email is spam.

These offline marketing ideas are definitely a must-have to promote your business. They don’t cost a lot but are certainly reliable to make your business a success.

Common Offline Marketing Mistakes And How To Avoid Them

Offline marketing will turn out to be an efficient advertising strategy if entrepreneurs know how to maximize their available resources. More often than not, a business entrepreneur resorts to overspending and too much aggressiveness only to find out that their customers are slowly becoming detached and irritated.

So that you will not end up wallowing because of a failed business venture, take note of the following offline marketing mistakes that entrepreneurs usually commit. It is always better to recognize these loopholes in the early stages of your marketing campaign than realizing them when your customers have already become dissatisfied.

Mistake #1: Quantity over Quality

When making advertisements and other promotional materials, quality is often forgotten. Most of the times, we get bombarded with TV advertisements that are being constantly played but are not really leaving a good impression on the viewers. A bulk of flyers can also be seen being distributed in large volumes, but are oftentimes just being junked by the readers.

What exactly went wrong? Well it’s not really hard to decipher. Some of the successful promo campaigns were products of creative minds and a collective effort of the hardest working individuals. You can’t entice people to patronize your product by merely flooding them with some senseless ads. Allocate a big portion of your budget in developing quality and valuable advertising materials.

Mistake #2: A Business-First Approach

Putting your business at the focal point of your marketing campaign is not advisable. Perhaps you’re wondering what else you have to promote other than your business. Of course, you still have to introduce your product, but don’t just concentrate on telling everybody how great your product is without even mentioning how it can benefit the customers.

Your marketing campaign should focus on the customer’s needs, and your promo materials must reflect how genuine you are in serving those needs. You’ll gain their trust once they see that you empathize with them.

Mistake #3: Advertising Ends with a Sale.

Most entrepreneurs think that offline marketing ends once they’re able to close out a sale. This should not be the case if you want to increase your following and if you want to maintain the loyalty of your customers. A successful businessman always goes beyond what is the norm. Have the effort to go the extra mile in making sure that your customers continue to be happy with your product.

Don’t stop improving your product and continue promoting these improvements to your customers. You can also give out discounts and freebies once in a while to keep your customers in anticipation of the other rewards that they can get in the future. These after-sale efforts will surely make your customers happy and contented.

As the others would say, each one of us is vulnerable to mistakes. That is absolutely true. But having the heads-up on how to prevent committing these mistakes on your offline marketing campaign is a big help to an up and coming business. Just as long as you conduct everything in a professional manner, then success is almost guaranteed.

Marketing Without Spending

Internet business by its character doesn’t entail that you could only promote, advertise and market online. On the contrary, it is also a potent tool to employ offline strategies and technique in marketing your internet business. Here are some of those offline marketing, which are absolutely free (that means you will not spend any single centavo for the advertisement rather you will only need effort and will to do it) to supplement your current and online strategies that will eventually boost up the exposure of your internet business.

Newspapers

You might have observed that most newspapers welcome and allot columns for contributors. Make use of this opportunity. Write something that the editor finds worth sharing or publishing. With this you could attached or include your website on your short profile.

Newsletter

This is a good tool for publicity because you have a definite subscribers and readers where you could promote your internet business. So better check those newsletters and see what you could contribute to the contents in view of marketing your business.

Magazines

Check all the best sellers’ magazines in the store. This would direct you to who will you be contacting with and offer to write on a regular basis. Editors, upon screening your ability and your write up, would surely love the offer. Just like that of the newspaper, include and put your website below your name or column domain.

Radio Programs

Pay attention to programs that invites experts to be their guest to discuss and answer queries on particular issues. Usually, the invited guest is responsible for answering queries about the issues laid for discussion from callers. That guest might be you. And if that happen you will have the chance to broadcast your internet business.

TV program

Talk shows, sit-com and the like are also good venue to market offline. You may offer your expertise on topics laid for discussion by being a guest speaker or participating audience on various segments of shows.

Symposium and business forums

Most businessmen conglomerate and form an association. The organization usually meets regularly and sometimes they sponsor business gathering such as forum and symposia. You may grab these venues to promote your business and possibly attract partnership and networking, which you significantly needed for expansion.

It is important to note also that you must know the line of business of organizations, so it is necessary that your target must be that line of business which is approximately related to what you offer in your respective business. For example your business is into software and database provider, your best target association would probably on business that employs or utilizes software application and database like, freight forwarder and carrier.

Holding tutorials or free classes

You may conduct free classes and tutorials on various disciplines and make use of your website as an example. Among the known tutorials you could hold that would possibly draw audience were computer and internet related matters. See to it that you are creative enough to allure your audience; otherwise you will not achieve your goal. You need then to employ some rhetorical skills to be assured of success.

These are actually simple yet powerful strategies for marketing. However, it also requires skills and talents. As you will note, marketing is a game of creativity.

There are a lot more of strategies you could employ which requires no expenditures, only that you have to be conscious of what you have, where you are, who do you have and allow your creativity to do it for you.

Build Buzz For Your Online Business Through Offline Marketing

Marketing your online business shouldn’t be dependent on online marketing alone. Online businesses owners often forget that potential clients come mostly from the non-virtual world. Here are a few offline marketing ideas you could integrate with your online marketing strategies:

Business Networking Ideas

• Networking could never be underestimated. Often, your network provides the leads and information necessary to send the word out about your business and to expand your clientele.

• Join business meetings, forums, and conventions. These are where most local business owners gather together to discuss business ideas. These are also where the latest strategies and technologies are discussed to help online businessmen and business owners learn more about their trades.

• Network yourself with local business professionals. Join business associations and activities like Chamber of Commerce, industry events, networking organizations, and trade shows to expand your network.

• Know who you are networking with and be selective with whom you are networking with. Select only the best networks.

• Establish good, strong relationships with your network business partners.

• Talk with people about your business. You’ll be surprised how many people are actually interested in building up their own businesses. You’ll also get to gather new business ideas this way.

Relationship marketing ideas

• Fortify your base market. Maintain and continue to improve your relationship with current and past customers. Don’t waste your initial marketing efforts by not sustaining your current base market. Continue marketing to your existing clients.

• There are a few things you could do to keep your base market loyal to your business. You can keep in touch with them on a personal level by sending out holiday cards. Some online business owners go so far as sending their clients handwritten letters that update them regarding industry news.

• Create a newsletter. Never allow your base market to forget about your business. Keep it foremost in their minds by giving away things, newsletter for example, that may directly or indirectly remind them of your business or your services.

• Form relationships with new market. Don’t be content with your current market base. Expand as much as your resources would allow.

• Participate in local trade shows. You can either be behind the booth reaching new customers or outside doing the talking to potential business partners.

• When introducing yourself to potential new customers, never complicate business terms. If you’re trying to build new business relationships, keep your information simple. Customers don’t have all day to figure out what you’re trying to sell.

• Throw special events or parties for your customers. Such events could help brand your products or services as well as expand your network connections.

Print Marketing Ideas

• Use effective business cards that contain everything your clients need to know about contacting you or availing your products or your services. Hand out your business cards to anyone either to expand your client base or to expand your network.

• Use brochures and flyers. So long as these are strategically placed, these could bring in potential customers. Never leave out your previous customers as well.

• Advertise on print media. Newspapers and magazines still rank high among the most effective offline marketing tools. Use these tools effectively.

Effective Offline Marketing For Freelancers

With most of your waking hours spent online, it is quite likely that you’re concentrating the majority of your marketing efforts online to promote your business as well. It’s second nature and not a totally bad habit. After all that’s where most of your market is. However, as a freelancer, you should also benefit from offline marketing and advertising gimmicks that have, time and again, proven themselves to generate profit. Here are a few of the most effective.

Talk about your freelance business. The word of mouth technique is yet to see the day when its luster has lost its money-generating power. For now though, it still ranks high among the most effective advertising techniques there are. On top of this, word of mouth advertising is very inexpensive. You just have to devise means to spread the word about your freelance business or service fast and you can already establish a base market and a few new clients on the side.

There are many ways to go about this type of offline marketing. The best and the simplest is to subtly spread the word by talking to people directly. Whether you’re at Starbucks, in a grocery store, a hardware shop or a library, you can casually advertise yourself and your freelance business. Expect no boom outside your local clientele though as this type of advertising rarely go nationwide. Unless of course you have use strategies that can spread the word on the national level.

Do some networking with other freelancers. Building your clientele by networking is by far among the easiest to do both offline and online. In the online world, if you know someone who’s in the same field as yours, try to connect with him via professional networking websites. That simple. The same principle can be applied in an offline setting. That someone you know may know another somebody who’s got plenty of connections in your field. Try to look into events and gatherings that may build your network.

Advertise yourself and your products or services in free local newspapers and magazines. It’s cheap and effective. You will likely have to pay some to have your advertisement placed on free newspapers and magazines, but whatever dollar you dole out will surely come back tenfold in the form of wider networking, new clients, and larger pool of potential clients.

Stretch your advertising dollar to billboards and other signs. How many times have you looked up a billboard or an ad sign and really have been introduced to a new product, service or company? If you can afford to post an ad via a billboard, you can expand your market exponentially. Offline marketing in the form of signs and billboards may bring in new business to your online venture. If you have the money to spare for this type of advertising, you might as well try to use it.

Give out your business cards. No, business cards haven’t died yet. In fact, they are much more effective these days than they were a decade ago. Whereas business cards can only contain information regarding your type of business and some contact information, nowadays these can also carry your domain name, social networking addresses, and a few other things that could help with expanding your network to quite a few places.

Offline And Online Marketing Integration Is Key

There has been much debate on which is the more reliable method between online and offline marketing. Both sides do have their own merits, but if you allow yourself to build an opinion favoring one of the two, you’ll be doing yourself a disservice as far as marketing goes. Instead of focusing on one of these two marketing methods, why not do both instead?

The truth of the matter is that it’s impossible to reach a wide audience by relying on a single method. Some consumers do their transactions solely on the Internet. Some won’t even consider touching the computer, much less go online.

So in order to achieve success in marketing, be it for a brick-and-mortar business or an online business, you’d be able to maximize all your business resources by doing both. For that matter, doing both is not enough; the perfect integration of these two marketing aspects should be administered to not only achieve business success, but also to go beyond your established expectations.

So how does one conjoin both online and offline marketing methods exactly? To help you out, here are some key points you need to be considered.

First Impressions Last Advertising should always deliver a call to action. Meaning, it needs to have a message or a slogan that can elicit a response from the people who see the ads. Again, both online and offline ads should work together in a way that can funnel people’s responses to a specific goal.

So how is this exactly done? To incite a call to action, contact information is required to be included in the ad. A url for the business site or the official Facebook page, a contact number, physical address of the store and such should be clearly stated in the ad. As such, the effectiveness of the ad will reflect on whether the action was taken.

The Content Now what happens if the advertisements have elicited the positive response? What is the next step once the person visited your website after seeing your ad?

You need to make sure that the URL of the website that is visited has the textual and graphical information that reflects what was stated in the ad. A minimalist approach should be applied at this point since deluding the site visitor with too much information can cause a big fraction of the visitors to eventually leave the site. That’s a lot of potential customers down the drain.

The further calls to action displayed in the website or the Facebook page should direct the visitors to more focused content. As the saying goes, “the Web is not a dumping ground,” so make sure that the people who visit the site or the landing page are able to find what they seek, or at least the information telling them what to do next.

Create Multiple Ads The most successful companies create multiple ads in a manner that makes use of online and offline tools. Of course, all ads should provide a call to action and guided by a targeted approach that will lead them to a specific destination.

Best of all, integrating both online and offline marketing won’t burn a big hole in your wallet. Ad artwork, static HTML pages, graphical links, fliers, brochures, etc. are inexpensive. All it takes is dedication, a good business sense and through planning.

Offline Marketing Common Mistakes To Look Out For

If there’s one major mistake most online marketers and business owners commit when they channel their marketing efforts online, it’s that they often go all out with their campaigns. Before they know it, the advertising dollars have already dwindled and significant results are yet to be realized.

To avoid this, it is best to keep a strategy in mind and to tread lightly when you’re about to make the top three mistakes most businesses commit when marketing their products and services. Here they are in no particular order.

Non Customer-Oriented Advertising Sure, your main focus is to drive revenue, to expand your market reach, and to create more business. Although these are what force you to advertise both online and off, you don’t have to send the same message across to your target market.

When promoting your business, you have to promote it in a way that will make your customers feel that they are far more important than all your profits combined. Your promotions should focus on your customers and some level of empathy towards them must be shown in your ad campaigns. Remember, although it is eventually you who would reap the benefits, you have to start with letting your potential customers understand that your products and services are to the best of their interests.

The long and short of it is that you send the message across that your products and services would be a great help to them. Create the overall impression that you are after catering to their needs – no strings attached.

Be careful not to overdo it, though. Consumers are aware that revenue is very important to your company. So long as they understand that your services or products have their interest in mind, you’ll be safe.

Quantity Over Quality It’s costly, it’s non-essential, it’s not effective. Prioritizing quantity over quality in marketing campaigns is all these.

Most business owners, perhaps brought about by their excitement in sending the word out about their business, often focus on the volume and not the quality of the advertisements they roll out. Most find consolation in the excuse that they have dollars to spare on advertising.

Given that they do have the budget to finance a great deal of advertising and marketing materials, having plenty of ads lacking in quality could still prove detrimental to their business. It could sacrifice branding and image building, which are quite arguably among the most important factors in building a business’ reputation.

On top of the damage that this practice often creates, the money that could have been used to more effective marketing often drain without any good results. There are many important things where extra marketing and advertising money could be used for. Things like advanced training for employees, business research, and even expenses that might be required in the future.

In a nutshell, some cerebral work put into advertising could go a very very long way. And avoiding costly marketing mistakes could do a great deal of good things for your online business.

Offline Marketing Beyond Online Marketing

Marketing your website doesn’t necessarily have to rely exclusively on online gimmicks. There are actually a handful of very effective offline marketing techniques that will invite more traffic to your website than all your banner ads combined. Here are some of them:

Local Business Magazines Many towns and states have locally published magazines that deal with businesses and relevant interests. And every publication addresses practically every market sector and niche. What better way to invite more traffic to your website than to advertise your online company to a local audience? This method works best if you’re an online business operator that caters to a local clientele.

You need not spend cash on placing ads, though. You can contact your local business magazine and offer to write a monthly, or even weekly, guest column for them. This is a win-win situation since they get to publish articles without costing them a cent and you get to advertise yourself with minimal effort on your part.

Local Newspaper This covers pretty much the same idea as with placing ads on local business magazines, although this time the medium is local newspaper. The only difference is that you have a broader audience which could be converted into regular visitors to your website.

You need not contribute articles or insights to your local newspaper – although that doesn’t seem like a very bad idea, not at all – you only have to have your online business advertised on its pages. You may have to spend some on ad placing, which may pay for itself in time. Again, this method works more effectively for online businesses that rely on local clientele. If you’re looking to tap into the mass market, you can consider posting advertisements on national newspapers.

Association Newsletters The majority of local association chapters print out regular newsletters that are mailed to their members. Look up associations that may become potential customers of your online business.

Local TV or radio advertisements If your online business has a product or service from which local listeners and viewers can benefit, create a TV or radio advertisement. TV and radio ads may no longer be the medium of default, but these still turn out some serious competitive advantage online. This is local exposure at its finest.

Many TV and radio shows have very specific targeted audience. If you’re product or service fit with a particular show’s regular audience, there’s no reason not to indulge yourself in a bit of advertising. Radio shows, in particular, have been shown to have multiplier effects. You might as well try to take advantage of that.

And finally, the biggest income generator of all, the Word of Mouth.

The good old word of mouth advertising is yet to see the end of its days. For now, this offline marketing technique is still one that online marketers should practice and integrate with their marketing and advertising efforts.

You may have switched to a non brick-and-mortar business, but that doesn’t mean that you have to do without traditional marketing techniques. Integrate offline marketing tactics with online marketing strategies and you have the formula for maximized exposure.

Offline Marketing Finding New Customers Away From Your Keyboard

Although online marketing is your bread and butter strategy in terms of getting the word out about your business and expanding your market, thinking like an offline marketer wouldn’t be a bad idea. Not at all. In fact, offline marketing could complement your online marketing efforts. Here are a few offline marketing strategies you could try to help boost sales for your online business:

Get Published Every business owner these days are looking to get published online on e-newsletters, e-zines, and article submission directories. It is a standard operating procedure, so to speak, when trying to drive traffic to your business website since most submission sites allow resource box or bylines through which readers could reach them or their website. These basically act as an ad for the company publishing the articles. Getting published online is a highly effective, cost-effective method of marketing and advertising an online business. The question is, why stop there?

Business owners seem to have forgotten that there is a great deal of magazines, newsletters and newspapers that are still in circulation these days. They seem to have also forgotten that the readership for print media, not to mention the trust level for this media, is still very high. So getting published on e-zines is just as important and effective as getting published on print.

Target Promotional Events Somewhere in the United States, there is at least one promotional event held every day. From charity events and gathering of professionals from all over the 50 states of America to country music events and beer-drinking contests, there are plenty of events that attract thousands of people every day. If you could get just a minimal exposure in any one of these, you are sure to at least have another person visiting your site in a day. But why settle with just that?

Target as many promotional events as you can. Promote your online business by using well-placed advertisements in such gatherings. Better yet, distribute promotional materials in such events with your URL printed on them. No matter what you do, you should target maximum exposure.

Don’t worry if the event is out of town. If you can’t make it to the event, you can contact the organizing group and ask that you be helped with your promotions. Usually, you will have to pay a small fee for the opportunity to promote your business.

Advertise Offline From colossal billboards to business cards and flyers, there are plenty of things you can do to advertise your online business to an offline market. Stretch your advertising dollars to offline advertising mediums such as TV and radio ads, street signs, free bookmarks, and business cards, among others.

Explore your options and don’t settle for online marketing SOPs. You see, there’s more to marketing your online business than SEO and banner ads. The online world may be a tremendous market for your services and products, but try not to forget the rest of the offline world.

Some Unique Ways To Advertise And Market Your Business Offline

The age of cookie-cutter marketing and advertising is soon to pass. More and more advertisers are now coming up with unique tactics to market services and products offline. This article discusses some of the more acceptable, not to mention more effective, unique offline marketing gimmicks that have emerged in recent years.

An Interview in a TV Show, a Newspaper or a Radio Show Mainstream media still ranks high in the world of advertising. After all, it has the means to reach and tap into potential market. The problem with this is that placing ads on TV, radio or newspaper command premium price compared to advertising products and services online. There are ways around this though. Trying to get yourself interviewed in print media or live on radio shows, for one.

If you consider yourself expert in your field, contributing your knowledge and insights on air would go a long way. Free PR can help bring in customers left and right.

Offer Your Services For Free and Get Something In Return Remember, 2 minus 1 doesn’t always boil down to 1. Giving away free service doesn’t always mean that you would gain nothing for your effort. At least not in the marketing world.

If you have a service that you can give away for free, ensure that you can get something from it in return, however small. If you could approach local shops and offer your services in return for supporting free promotions for your website, well and good. Say you are a painter with an online store for your artwork. You can approach local businesses and give them your free services (for example, a free painting). In return, ask them to place your business card on their front desk. If your painting is good, people would inquire about it and eventually, it could pay for itself by bringing in more clients to your business.

Another way to do this is to offer your free services to a local magazine or newspaper. If you can contribute articles on a regular basis, magazines and newspapers may consider to publish you along with your business name. There is always a shortage in fresh content so take advantage of that. A newspaper or a magazine outfit may be your way to getting the word out about your business.

Movie Theater Ads Notice the ads that you see on the movie theaters? Those are actually paid advertisements by local and sometimes national companies. If you think your target market could be tapped by those ads, check out how much they cost. These could be worth your offline marketing budget.

Ads on Local Cable Channels Very much like TV commercials and advertisements, although much cheaper, the running ads that local cable channels host could help bring in business to your online venture. Enquire with your local cable channel company to know how much these ads cost.

Bus Ads Whether it’s at the bus station, outside the body of the bus, or inside, you could turn a bus into a moving billboard.

Offline Marketing Strategies – Some Things You Might Want To Try

It’s been long since people last focused on offline marketing to market their businesses online. With the recent success of Ebay.com and Answers.com in marketing their online presence, online businessmen are once again turning to old school marketing to expand their businesses, to extend their market reach, and to improve brand awareness. But we are not going to settle with just that. With so much competition these days, some improvisation is in order.

Good-Bad Publicity. You’ve heard what they say, “even bad publicity could be good”. It doesn’t necessarily have to be entirely bad. Something bizarre or eye-catching that could hold the people’s attention for a few seconds or minutes is enough. Something that could leave an impression on the public will go a long way in creating a buzz for your online business. While you’re at it, try not to do something that could damage the reputation you are trying to build.

Turn People’s Heads Around. Do something that could turn heads around. Remember Richard Branson’s world record attempts and how he received worldwide media (and massive publicity!) by insane stuff? We are not saying that you go for the same tactics. What we are suggesting is that you don’t stick with cookie cutter offline marketing strategies and do something incredible; something newsworthy. The media loves sensational events. You will receive some good things for this along with a few bad publicities. But after everything has been said, what remains will be brand name recall. Now you know this, take stock.

Do Something Good. When people help out, others will see. What you should try is to involve yourself in a charity occasion, or better, to sponsor one. The media is always on the lookout for such occasions. Your company is likely to gain recognition as a consequence.

A Little Telemarketing Could Go A Long Way. Someone will definitely hang up on you or, worse comes to worst, scream at you. But what does that matter? Telemarketing has been and would always be an effective way of expanding your market. Now it’s time to pick up your phone, get your phone book and find some leads.

Place Ads Strategically. This could sound silly and may not be as good in reality as it is in theory. But for all its worth, it really does work. The restroom is considered as one of the most visited places anywhere. Take advantage of the flow of traffic in public restrooms. When you place ads on washroom stalls or on the walls of the urinals, chances are, you’ll get some attention. Anyone doing his or her thing has nothing else to do but to stare on the ads stickered to the wall right in front of them. Why not give this ad placing strategy a try and see if it will generate traffic to your online business’ website.

Sponsor A Local Team. The least expensive are the children’s sports teams. If you can afford to sponsor adult teams, then better. Team uniforms are something to be stared at. You could print your brand on a team’s kit and have a moving advertisement as a result.

Offline Marketing Using Newspaper Ads

Most business ventures rely on the Internet in administering their marketing efforts these days. This is fine, since no one can deny that the web is a powerful marketing tool, especially now that we’re living in the Information Age. However, those who rely solely on the Internet are limiting their reach as far as acquiring customers is concerned. Contrary to what they think, offline marketing is still as effective as it was before. And if want to run a successful offline marketing campaign, publishing newspaper ads is a good way to start.

To help you get the best results in running a newspaper ad campaign, here are a few key points that need to be addressed.

Where Do We Begin? Before we can pick a newspaper to publish our ads, we need a list that can help us decide. The website newspaper.com can provide you a good list of newspaper publications to choose from. Of course, the cost of publication will depend on the newspaper and you will have to pick according to your budget and goals. What you need to do is make a short list of newspapers that are circulated in wealthy towns and in large populated areas. Aside from population size, the culture and the rate of population growth should be taken into account as well.

Make Your Choice Each newspaper publication charges different rates. Before you pick a newspaper and pay your hard-earned money in exchange for having your ad published, get to know the volume of copies that are to be distributed by that newspaper and see to it that it gives justice to the advertising fee. Good newspapers should produce 30k-250k copies in circulation, with the price ranging from $15 to $50.

Maximize Your ROI It’s entirely up to you, but the best day to have your ad published is on Sundays. Let’s face it: people don’t read newspapers as frequently as before since the Internet became popular. But on a Sunday morning, it’s always nice to sit back and relax on the breakfast table while reading a newspaper.

What You Say In Your Ad Is Important The general rule of thumb when writing an ad is to keep it simple. The biggest mistake one can make is to use fluffy and unnecessary words. Remember, your ad is not meant to be a piece of literature. It’s meant to inform the readers about your product and its benefits. At best, three to four lines should be enough, with the important words and numbers typed in bold (emphasize this action to the sales rep). And of course, the ad should display your company’s contact information, preferably an 800 number.

Keep Tabs Newspaper ads do take some time to reel in potential customers. Calls will be scarce during the first few weeks after the publication of the ad. Don’t fret, since this is pretty normal. Remember that an ad has a cumulative effect on people. But if a reader gets to see an ad week in and week out, there’s a big chance that he’ll finally take notice. In case the amount of leads leaves much to be desired even after a month, take time to consider the adjustments that have to be made in the ad.

If these offline marketing procedures are handled with the utmost precision, people will eventually take notice of your newspaper ads.

Offline Marketing VS Online Marketing

Online business owners seem to have forgotten the revenue that could be gained by tapping on the largest pool of potential clients – the offline world. Most online businesses focus the bulk of their marketing and advertising campaigns online that the less virtual world has been given very little thought. In this article, you will understand why there is wisdom in marketing and advertising in the real world.

Fast results Online marketing strategies like search engine optimization or SEO are very effective. No doubt about that. However, in yielding fast results, strategies like SEO are a lagging behind. It takes weeks, even months, before SEO efforts start getting results. It could take a long time before search engines identify a website and put it up on its high-ranking list.

The same is true with banner adverts. Although a bit outdated already, many online companies are still using banner ads to divert traffic to their websites.

These strategies, along with a few fresh ones, drive results. However, the results are not often guaranteed to be created within a short span of time. Offline marketing and advertising, on the other hand, tend to have stronger impacts than their online counterparts. Perhaps the result stem from direct contact with real consumers. Perhaps consumers have a higher trust level on advertisements that they get to see and touch personally. There are many factors why consumers prefer offline marketing. Whatever the reason, one thing remains true – old school marketing strategies have been dishing out good, concrete results long before online marketing entered the scene.

Standing the test of time If there’s one thing that is sure to happen to your online marketing strategies, it is that these will change over time. Whatever work you have invested on your website, banner ads, and SEO, these will surely change as websites and web pages come and go. On top of these, search engine results aren’t permanent. These fluctuate overtime. Whatever ranking you had last week may be changed this week. As the old saying goes, “nothing is permanent except change.” The adage is truer in the virtual world than it is in the real world, though.

An online entrepreneur using offline marketing, however, doesn’t have to worry about that matter. Offline marketing strategies are more or less permanent than their online counterparts. At the very least, they are far more predictable. If you place advertisements on a billboard, you can expect to have that advertisement for as long as that billboard is up. If you have sent out direct mails to your customers and potential customers, you can expect to have those mails delivered to their mail boxes. If you’re paying for radio or TV ads, you can expect nothing less than having some people hear or see your ads. That much cannot be said about online marketing strategies.

Make no mistake though, online marketing has its many uses and advantages. It is just that in some areas, offline marketing seems to have the edge over its virtual counterpart.

Use Offline Marketing To Help Your Online Business Prosper

So you now have your online business, you’ve got your computer inside your home office, your Internet connection and all the online tools that are necessary to launch your online marketing campaign. You’ve heard all the talk about the viral effect the Internet has on online marketing. You’re well set, and have trashed any ideas of ever employing offline marketing. After all, traditional marketing is a thing of the past, right? In order to succeed, we need to go with the times, right?

Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but if that’s what you believe (as many others), then you’re setting yourself up for a big downfall. A major one, if I may add.

The truth of the matter is, offline marketing is as essential today as it was before the Internet was even conceived. While it’s true that the Internet has revolutionized the way marketing is being done today – partly due to the steady increase of online users over the last several years – its reach hasn’t penetrated all types of demographics yet.

I’ll even go so far to say that offline marketing has increased the impact of traditional marketing. As a heavy online user, how many times have you been annoyed by pop up ads that seem to spring out of nowhere every time you’re online? Another reason is desensitization. We got so used to seeing online ads everywhere that we’ve become accustomed to ignoring them.

Offline advertisements have that genuine impact that online advertisements cannot match. When you see a striking billboard explaining how a brand of cologne can make you irresistible to the ladies, you can’t help but pay attention. A brochure that tells you in a few words how this brand of shampoo can make your hair smooth as silk, we at least consider the thought of giving it a try. And we feel that the companies that produced these offline advertisements are easily held accountable for any complaints that we might have in their products.

Don’t get me wrong. Online marketing is definitely here to stay; you’d do well to use it to your advantage. The point here is to realize how offline marketing, especially when integrated with online marketing, can catapult your online business to greater heights.

So keep doing your SEO’s; maintain your business website; write your business proposals; spread the word about your products using your Facebook Page. Do all that, but don’t forget to contact the newspaper companies for a chance to have them display your ads, or use the radio stations to “air” your advertisements.

Administer marketing tasks just like how the businessmen of yore did it, on top of the online marketing tricks you’ve learned on the Internet.

Remember, your goal is to reach as many people as possible. The Internet cannot do it alone, and if there’s one thing that can fill all the gaps, that would be offline marketing.

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