Sometimes a company can get so wrapped up in driving traffic to their website through organic search, social media, PPC and email marketing that it forgets the offline promotion methods that have been used since the day the first wooden Indian appeared in England announcing the sale of tobacco. By the way, the first “wooden Indians” were neither wood (they were iron) nor depictions of native Americans (nobody in England had ever seen one) but the target audience got the idea and shopped at the store with the iron statue of a black slave dressed in tobacco leaves to buy their New World vice.

A company simply can’t afford to overlook the low tech marketing opportunity that offline promotion represents. While online marketing can provide laser sharp targeting, until all of your customers and potential customers live virtual lives 24/7, their eyeballs will still be scanning newspapers, ads on company vehicles, direct mail and all of the other opportunities that offline offers. Take advantage of those opportunities to introduce them to your URL.

 Here’s a quick list of easy offline promotion ideas:

• Every piece of paper that your company generates that has your physical address on it needs to have your website address added. That means invoices, purchase orders, checks, packing slips (an excellent opportunity to upsell) and of course the obvious, stationary and printed sales material. You’re already sending these items out; let these recipients know where you are online.
• Take advantage of the economic woes that newspapers, large and small, are experiencing. When done correctly, press releases can be viewed as “free content” by editors. Just remember that press releases are about news not sales pitches. You can announce business news or you can do more of a feature story if your firm is participating in a charity or community event. Call the papers you’re interested in and see if you can get PR guidelines from the appropriate editor.
• Put your name on stuff you own. If you have a sign on your building add your URL. If you have company vehicles add your URL. If you have banners that you use at trade shows or community events…add your URL. Anything you own that is visible to the public (and doesn’t violate local signage codes) should include your website address.
• Sign ‘em up. The money is in the list. If you didn’t capture a person’s email address online, why not ask them face to face? If you have a retail brick and mortar, place signup sheets at the checkout and offer a special coupon for signing up. The same concept can be used at trade shows or even sales calls. Once you have permission you can market until your list member unsubscribes. Just be sure you don’t abuse the process and that you actually have their permission.
• Get involved. You may market nationally or even globally but there is still a local market that can be influenced by your involvement. Join, and more importantly participate, in community and professional organizations. You’ll be promoting your business not through a sales pitch, but through your reputation as a good corporate citizen.

These suggestions are all simple, relatively low cost strategies that can be implemented quickly. There is of course the whole gamut of offline advertising to consider. Direct mail, radio and TV spots, billboards and telemarketing are options albeit more expensive, challenging to manage and trickier to evaluate. If you go this route make absolutely certain you invite the listener, viewer, reader to visit your site where you will have a far better chance to influence behavior than you can in the 5 to 30 seconds direct advertising offers.

If you’d like more ideas on how to better promote your business site offline, give us a call at 305-791-0077 or contact us and we’ll be happy to share our opinions with you.