Copyright ©
Martin Bradley
Offline
Website Promotion
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 organisation 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 colour
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.
Good luck
About The Author
Martin Bradley is the
Creative Director at Bullbreed
Design
Studio. The company provides Website Design, Hosting and Corporate
Identity Packages. http://www.bullbreed.com.
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