Oli Osorhan asked:


1. Answering Machine – This one is easy for offline marketing, just be sure to include your URL, dot.com in your answering machine messages!

2. Address Labels  – Again easy all your outgoing mail for everything use your address labels for more offline marketing of your business and website!

3. Business Cards – Definitely use them, get in the habit of carrying them with you and pass them out “It Works”, you can even get you cards done on cd-roms!

4. Company vehicles – We all see vehicles with company names and telephone numbers on them driving our streets and motorways. This is a great idea as it gives potential customers the chance while out and about to learn about the company and also learn about how to contact them should they need the service or product they offer at some stage in the future. I often wonder why more websites aren’t promoted in this way by simply adding the company website URL also, you definitely should do this as part of your Offline Marketing!

5.  Flyers – Post flyers on free local bulletin boards (grocery stores, discount chain stores, shopping malls, laundromats, dry cleaners, etc.) print a flyer on bright yellow paper detailing your web address and your company. BE SURE to include your email address, URL as well as your telephone number! Tack the flyer to bulletin boards all over your town. Keep a supply in your car for handy offline marketing!

6.  Freebies & Giveaways – This method is a personal favorite of mine. It involves purchasing and distributing items such as pencils, pens, t-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, calendars, key-chains, bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets and the like. All these items will have your URL, Logo, or Email address located somewhere on them helping to market offline and attract people to your website.

7.  Christmas Cards – Use your Christmas cards to all your customers also for offline marketing with all your info URL, email and phone numbers!

8.  Checks & Coupons – Again use all your information when using coupons and have your company checks printed with this information!

9. Web decals – are a new, inexpensive and fun way to use offline marketing and attract attention to your website. People absolutely love them, and they are very simple to use. Web decals are made of high quality vinyl and printed with state of the art digital equipment. Display your website address and more in bold white or black & white letters. People stick them everywhere. In your car windows, store, office and home windows, any place with glass!

10. Word of Mouth – easiest and a very viral form of offline marketing, your happy customers and friends just pass it on!

11. Fax cover sheets – (many people forget this one for offline marketing!)

12. Personal brochures – about you and your company!

13. Printed Material – Print your URL (Web site address) everywhere you print your business name. Including business cards, fliers, signage, ads, product tags, labels, craft show directories (in shows you may be attending) and anywhere else your business name is printed!

14. Newspapers, classifieds and related magazines – The print media which includes newspapers, journals and magazines is another avenue where your can have your URL exposed for everyone to see. It’s best first to start advertising your products, services and URL in local newspapers and then if successful continue onto regional and national publications. If you can’t afford the common graphical advertisement as seen throughout newspapers and journals related to your industry don’t worry as most of these publications have classified ad sections. Classified ads allow you to reach a targeted audience very cheaply with a simple short message and of course your URL is included in there somewhere too again a great source of offline marketing for your business!

15. Press releases – Press releases using them for offline marketing and promotion. Press releases or news releases as they’re sometimes known are newsworthy stories about your business that you send to various sections of the media. These sections of the media must be related to your industry for you to have any chance of success. Newsworthy stories are stories which readers of the media publications you submit to might be interested in.

If the journalist reads it and likes it he or she may publish it or some of its contents in his or her publication, if this happens you’re on to a winner because the public in general are much more responsive to a news story than a plain old hyped up advertisement. This could mean they’ll enquire about or even purchase your products or services.

Using press releases for offline marketing of your website uses the same principals, if it’s newsworthy release it. Newsworthy events for websites include website launches, website re launches and new online services among other items. Also don’t forget online press releases!

16. I. ID-It Plates – These Elegant mini-Billboards promote YOU 365 days a year, enhance the appearance of your vehicles, last for years and most important, give you literally Millions of Impressions  and affordable offline marketing over their lifetime.

Conclusion – Even if your business only exits in the virtual world you must realize ALL your customers live and always will live in the physical world and therefore can be reached much better from the physical world. The moral of the story is never ever forget about the offline marketing and promotion of your website. Your success or failure could depend on it!

http:www.moneybizhome.com/marketing_articles

 

Brynn A asked:


Many industrial and B2B companies are taking steps to add or enhance online marketing. Online marketing encompasses search engine optimization, article marketing, blogging and other Internet activity. As companies branch into the digital marketing world, it is key to evaluate current marketing initiatives and ensure that they blend with any new online marketing tactics. In fact, some online and offline marketing can work together for an added boost.

To align your marketing efforts, it is important that they follow a similar path and message. Your online marketing campaign is now as important, if not more important than your offline marketing. So, the message you send online should be planned and considered as thoroughly as the campaigns you already have in effect.

To make your digital promotion correspond well to your traditional marketing, you should ask a few questions:

1. What is your message? What are you promising? Is your website offering the answer to your message, does it guarantee to fulfill your promise?

2. Do your traditional marketing pieces have your web address place prominently on them?

3. Do both your online marketing & traditional marketing efforts provide a number, email or different ways to create action and convert customers?

To understand the importance of aligning marketing campaigns, realize that a potential client will always look to gain more knowledge before purchasing. After promotion of any type is seen, a client will do further research, if the advertisement captured their attention. One of the best ways to catch consumers is to educate them during their research stage. Providing a web address within offline marketing materials like business cards, sales books and trade show booths helps to further the “conversation” from paper to computer. Providing a web address is a powerful marketing tool, as it is not overly aggressive, yet provides you with another opportunity to catch their information like name, number and email address.

So, as you begin to flow your customers from your offline marketing to your industrial online marketing landing space, create your website to be a one stop information shop about your company, the products or services you provide, what you have given to the community and what others have to say about you. You can help a potential client have a positive impression before they even pick up the telephone or submit an online inquiry.

Every so often it is important to step back and think about how you proceed as a consumer. What actions do you take? What information are you looking for? Ask those in your company those questions and brainstorm about your ideal consumer’s buying process. It will likely include offline and online marketing channels, and a migration between the two. That is why it is important to have online and offline marketing emphasize the same message, and to have the two channels complement one another. You will be pleased with how powerful your marketing can be as the leads increase.

Cathy Lindsay asked:


Utilizing these few ways of advertising offline can be very beneficial in creating more visitors to your website.  If you don’t all ready use this strategy, consider implementing it into your business.  There are many potential customers out there just waiting to visit your site.  They just don’t know it yet. 

Passing out fliers can be very effective and also very expensive to have printed.  Creating  and printing them yourself can be a tremendous cost saver.  Make sure that your fliers will capture someone’s attention and keep them reading. You want them to stay interested. You may all ready know someone who needs a little extra cash that could pass them out for you if you don’t have the time.  Maybe even a trustworthy teenager in your neighborhood.  (There are places that will pay you ten cents or so a flier.  Just to give you an idea of how to pay someone.)  A mall parking lot is a good place to go and place them on cars.  Think of all the cars that are in a parking lot that size.  People do this often and it works.  

Business cards can also be very effective.  Match them to your fliers as best you can.  Pass them out everywhere you go.  Be aware of all the people that you come in contact with on a daily basis.  Such as the gas station, grocery store, the place you get coffee in the morning, etc…  How many of these people do you talk to?  Look for the opportunity to hand them a card and tell them to read it when they get time.  You can usually find a way in even the littlest conversations.

Postcards are another method that you can use.  Again, create your own and save money.  These are a little more difficult because they have to be mailed, which means that you need names and addresses to do this.  One way to get them is right out of the phone book. There are many people who all ready use this strategy.  For bulk shipping rates check your local postal service. 

Let’s talk about good, old fashioned word of mouth.  This is the first type of marketing ever used and is still going strong. 

Did you know that for years GNC’s only form of advertising was word of mouth?  They grew to be one of the most popular vitamin chains without any other form of marketing.  (They started using other means within the last eight years.) For a business to grow like this with only word of mouth is amazing.  This is probably the most powerful type of marketing in the world.

Think brilliance when you are creating your marketing products. You want to capture someone’s attention so intensely that they must read it in its entirety.  What would capture your attention?  If the person that is reading your flier/card doesn’t need the product or service that you are offering, there’s always a chance that they know someone who does.  If they liked what they saw they will pass it on, and then that person will pass it on, and so forth.  It will start a chain reaction that won’t stop.  You will be smiling all the way to the bank wondering why you hadn’t tried this before.

charen smith asked:


With the online world becoming ubiquitous, we forget about the potential of offline marketing as a powerful tool to help us promote our business. Even if you’re an online printing company for example, you can still make offline marketing work for you. Here are some classic offline marketing ideas that can help even an online printer to generate leads:

1-      Put up posters and give out flyers to every store, post office, grocery, bank, school and library, or anywhere else you can think of. Be sure to be on the lookout for community bulletin boards. Just make sure that you include your website and email address in your contact information.

2-      Include order forms and tear-out reply slips in your print brochures and color catalogs. Put your online printing website address so they can browse your list in the internet. Be sure to tell them about your easy-order-process using your website.

3-      Talk to local businesses if you can post flyers in their windows. Leave your business cards with local business owners, especially near the cash register.

4-      If you’re in business, you do travel. Before you check out, be sure to leave your collaterals either with the front desk or business center. What one business owner did was to leave a few of his product samples with the housekeeper as a form of tip.

5-      Another marketer gave out small care packages and gave them out at exhibits and events, along with his flyers, business cards, order forms and a reply envelope.

6-      An online printer made bags of goodies and attached his business card to seal it. Every time he attended an event or a seminar, or when he talked to other people, he gave out the bags so they would remember him even after the conversation.

7-      What Avon did was to host house parties to introduce their products to their target clients. There were snacks and games during the party, and the guests were given discounts on their first orders. The prizes during the games were items from the Avon product list.

8-      Design flyers and insert them in the local newspaper, newsletter and magazines.

9-      Do a fundraiser. Communicate with local organizations and community groups. Offer them a certain percentage from the sale.

10-     Go to the YellowPages and put an ad under your group.

11-     Hire teenagers and students to deliver your flyers and catalogs door-to-door on weekends or after class.

Finally, be sure to call your target clients and introduce your products and services. You can offer special discounts and free items if they go to your shop or make their first order. 

For comments and inquiries about the article visit Online Printing and Online Printer

Wonderful Offline Marketing Strategies

With the online world becoming ubiquitous, we forget about the potential of offline marketing as a powerful tool to help us promote our business. Even if you’re an online printing company for example, you can still make offline marketing work for you. Here are some classic offline marketing ideas that can help even an online printer to generate leads:

1-      Put up posters and give out flyers to every store, post office, grocery, bank, school and library, or anywhere else you can think of. Be sure to be on the lookout for community bulletin boards. Just make sure that you include your website and email address in your contact information.

2-      Include order forms and tear-out reply slips in your print brochures and color catalogs. Put your online printing website address so they can browse your list in the internet. Be sure to tell them about your easy-order-process using your website.

3-      Talk to local businesses if you can post flyers in their windows. Leave your business cards with local business owners, especially near the cash register.

4-      If you’re in business, you do travel. Before you check out, be sure to leave your collaterals either with the front desk or business center. What one business owner did was to leave a few of his product samples with the housekeeper as a form of tip.

5-      Another marketer gave out small care packages and gave them out at exhibits and events, along with his flyers, business cards, order forms and a reply envelope.

6-      An online printer made bags of goodies and attached his business card to seal it. Every time he attended an event or a seminar, or when he talked to other people, he gave out the bags so they would remember him even after the conversation.

7-      What Avon did was to host house parties to introduce their products to their target clients. There were snacks and games during the party, and the guests were given discounts on their first orders. The prizes during the games were items from the Avon product list.

8-      Design flyers and insert them in the local newspaper, newsletter and magazines.

9-      Do a fundraiser. Communicate with local organizations and community groups. Offer them a certain percentage from the sale.

10-     Go to the YellowPages and put an ad under your group.

11-     Hire teenagers and students to deliver your flyers and catalogs door-to-door on weekends or after class.

Finally, be sure to call your target clients and introduce your products and services. You can offer special discounts and free items if they go to your shop or make their first order. 

Zack Miller asked:


Network marketing and MLM businesses have been around for decades. The pioneers of the network marketing industry were Amway and Avon. They are mostly responsible for all of the offline marketing strategies that are still used today. They had to because the internet was not invented yet. Most if not all network marketing, MLM, home based businesses, affiliate marketing and direct marketing businesses have an online presence today. However, most of them are still using offline marketing strategies, even in light of the internet. So the question is, which is better, offline marketing or online marketing?

Offline Marketing

Most businesses have the, “if it is not broken don’t fix it”, motto and continue to use offline marketing as their main form of marketing. The first and most popular offline marketing strategy consists of getting your friends and family involved. This strategy is most successfully achieved through hotel meetings, conference calls and home parties. With this strategy, your market is a local one. Also you have to go out and find your prospects. The second most popular is buying leads from leads companies. This strategy involves calling complete strangers and using your phone sales skills to get prospects to know like and trust you instantly, in order to join your business. This strategy involves hours of phone time and is all about numbers. Once again, you are going out and finding prospects. The third, and most popular, is telling everyone that you see and come in contact with about your business. This strategy runs on the, you never know who might be interested and it’s all about the numbers game. Once again you’re going out and finding prospects. Other forms of offline marketing strategies involve: business cards, postcards, flyers, car wraps and more. These are the main offline marketing strategies that most companies and entrepreneurs implement in their business. The two main problems with offline marketing is saturation and you have to find the prospects.

Online Marketing

Very few network marketing and MLM companies and distributors market their businesses online. Most business owners that use offline strategies say that online marketing strategies will not work with their business model. Or they say that online marketing is to in personal. However Online marketing is the best way to put your

business, products, services and brand in front of the biggest audience in the world. That audience is called the Web. The Web has a market of over 1.5 billion people in 100 English speaking countries. It can be accessed from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. You can work your business in your underwear at home or on a beach in a tropical paradise and still reach the world. With online marketing strategies, such as article marketing, video marketing, social media marketing and more, prospects find you. Also once you put the content online, if done right, it will drive tons of traffic and leads to your site forever. With these types of strategies you are able to flood the marketing with your content. This in turn will brand you as the expert, not your company.

I, myself have used both strategies offline and online at one point in my career. Through the trial and error, I prefer and will always prefer online marketing strategies. My reasons are simple. You can reach a larger market from anywhere. All you need is a cell phone and laptop. You can avoid the saturation effect that offline marketing usually creates. Another reason is with the content you put online. It will drive traffic back to your site forever. Do the work right once and it continues to pay you. The last reason is, I don’t have to go and find people. People find me through the content I put out there and they instantly know, like and trust me because of it.

Which do you prefer online or offline marketing and why?

Jeff Casmer asked:

The Internet has become the largest medium of communication; and has presented a lot of business opportunities.

Online home based business owners tend to limit themselves to online marketing methods. Nevertheless, there is a huge potential to promote your home based business through some cost effective offline marketing strategies.

So what are the most effective offline marketing strategies for your home based business?

1. Word of mouth in your circle of influence Word of mouth is one of the best free advertising channels. We all have people we interact with on a daily basis, and these are potential customers. Make a list of all the people you know or interact with and how can you best tell them about your internet business. Be passionate about your internet business and always be prepared to tell someone about it when an opportunity to do so presents itself!

2. Mail-out newsletters and flyers Mail-out newsletter or flyers can be effective if you target it to a specific ‘group’. You could create one to distribute to local day care centers just as an example – and in your newsletter or flyer, highlight the benefits of an online business to the targeted group, for example earning money at home for stay at home moms or dads. Posting your home based business URL on bulletin boards can also be effective.

3. Use and give away free branded ‘stuff’ You can promote your business by having your URL on all your stationery, all written communication and other items you can give away for free. If you want to get a lot of people to know about your home based business, you will need to come up with some creative ways of promoting your URL. You can be limited only by your imagination. Have your business cards with your home based business URL. Give them out to people you meet, leave them about where you can, such as in your local coffee shop.

4. Newspapers and magazines Local newspapers are good for advertising your online business. Most local papers have ‘home business opportunities’ section, so you run a regular classified advert. In addition, contact your local newspaper or business-oriented magazine and let the business editor know you have a new business and web site and what you offer. Local newspapers are frequently interested in featuring local business people and their accomplishments. This is free advertising and should always be used. You can also contact your local magazine and offer to write a monthly or weekly guest column for them, and include your ‘author bio’ and home based business URL.

5. Joint ventures with offline business You can get into a joint venture partnership with an offline business which sells a complementary product or service to your home based business. If you can identify a partner that best fit your business, this is an important offline marketing strategy that can help you succeed in your home based business by enabling you to reach potential customers that you could not reach before. As an example, if you have a website selling fitness/health products or tips, you could prepare a leaflet and make a deal with an offline local fitness/health shop where they giveaway your leaflet to their shoppers with each purchase. The offline marketing strategies strategies outlined above can help you grow your home based business.

Felix Burke asked:

Traditional marketing methods are still a viable resource to engage customers, and you can use them to drive buyers to your online products as well!

Traditional marketing includes newspapers, magazines, catalogues, fliers, direct mail, business cards, radio and TV ads, and specialty products, such as pens with your logo. These communications have been successful since the printing press, and now they can enhance your online marketing. Here’s how.

Think of each of the traditional communications as your pre-sell for your online presence. Imagine that you have a vitamin product, particularly helpful for eye health. Place an ad, perhaps in a health magazine, that extols the benefits of the product and sends the buyers to your pitch page online for testimonials and to purchase. You have just used traditional marketing-the magazine–to direct buyers to an online purchase.

Here’s another great example. Imagine you are a CPA in business for yourself, and you’ve recently joined the Chamber Of Commerce. Attending one of their “Business After Hours” functions, you give out several of your business cards, and point out that more information about your services is available at your website. When a prospect visits your website, all your accreditations, education, awards, community service, family profile, and available services are front and center. Your site is easily navigable, and with each click, you are building credibility with the visitor. Although your product is your service, and that is done in person, traditional marketing-your business card–drives people to your website to pre-sell them, and predispose them to select you for a CPA.

Here’s yet one more example, to get your marketing juices flowing. Imagine you run a small local bakery which specializes in ten different kinds of pralines, shipped all over the U.S. Twelve weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, your brochures are sent to a large mailing list of former and prospective customers. Your brochure is beautifully appetizing, but it can’t hope to cover all the pertinent information for shipped orders, so customers are directed online. At your website, every kind of praline is pictured, and testimonials abound by satisfied customers from Maine to Oregon. You don’t take phone orders anymore, as every available worker is packing pralines, so all orders are done via the website. And how did your customers find you? Traditional marketing in the form of your brochure brought them to you.

Don’t abandon offline marketing in your online efforts, for you may well find that the sum of the two is mathematically even more profitable than either one alone!

Scott Lindsay asked:

The popularity of the Internet changed the face of advertising forever, but it did not completely replace the more traditional, offline advertising strategies. Though these may not be of use to all types of work at home business it can prove to be a cost-effective way to gain new business in a regionally intense business.

Primarily, offline advertising would be best suited, but not limited to, businesses that offer a local service. This would include such businesses as an at home day care or computer servicing business. For both examples the customers you would be aiming to attract would be local or regional in scope. Parents may even choose a day care by the services that are closest to them to minimize travel time for young children, or choose a day care that is conveniently located on their way to work.

One of the methods people may be familiar with would be a classified ad in your local newspaper. There is usually a fee associated with this service so you will want to monitor how many customers it brings over a period of time. It would not be wise to cease using this form of advertising if they do not bring customers immediately, but you also would not want to continue them indefinitely if they fail to bring in a single customer.

Similar advertising space is sometimes available in the front of shop windows. Again for a fee you are able to post an advert for a purchased period of time. Your business phone book entry can also be upgraded for a fee to something more visible to information consumers.

Business cards are an inexpensive way to advertise. They can be handed out to people you meet as you go about other tasks. Similar results may be achieved by posting flyers in prominent places, where it is legal to do so. Many churches and community centers have a bulletin board and allow individuals to post information there.

For those who wish to branch out or try something different there are two other options. TV and radio advertising is not as inexpensive as taking out a classified ad, but it may not break the bank either, and you can target your audience more specifically and have the chance to reach more people. The drawback here is not only the cost, but also the fact that you would need someone to produce the spots and someone to appear in them although many broadcast facilities provide services with low cost or no cost options.

There are certain pieces of information that are essential in order to carry out your offline marketing strategies. You need to list a website address if you have one, as well as your phone number so people can contact you. If you don’t have a web site it might be appropriate to include a mailing address, or your home address in the case of an at home day care.

It would be foolish to completely ignore online advertising. Some people will use the Internet as their first place to search for services or products. Work with all of the tools available to you. Maximize all opportunities to make a success of your new business.

Allie James asked:

Online marketing is rapidly becoming one of the most popular business opportunities in the world. One of the things that most online marketer fail to realize is that even though your main focus is and should be the internet one could make a killing marketing offline. I honestly do not know why offline marketing has become a lost art but if you are serious about maximizing your true earning potential you may want to consider this still very profitable method of marketing.

Here are a few ways that you can do this:

1. Get some business cards made. No matter what you are promoting online you should have a business card. It doesn’t have to have your name and phone number on it. You can simply have a short message on it and your web address on it. You should always keep these on you because you never know when they may come in handy.

2. Use flyers. I know this seem completely old school but flyers can still be very effective. It’s all about where you put them. The first thing you need to do is make sure that you create a simple but enticing flyer that will get the attention of people. After you have your flyers all ready to get you need to think about what you are offering and where would potential buyers be.

For example: If you are marketing something to do with baseball you probably would want to go to baseball games where you will be able to leave flyers on cars chairs and even the bathroom. You don’t have to even being noticed doing this. You can distribute your flyers without bringing any attention to yourself. On the other hand if you are more of the “hey look at me” type of person you can literally pass your flyers out to people coming in or out of the game.

3. Run ads in mini merchants and newspapers. I am pretty sure that whatever you are promoting online can be promoted effectively in your local newspaper or a mini merchant or any type of offline publication that allows ads. Once again, you need to make sure your ad is catchy. Always write ads with the thought of “what would make someone go to my site”.

These are just a few simple ways that you can really increase your online sales. No one really promotes offline anymore and this is exactly why you should. I really do hope that you implement these very effective tactics to grow your online business.

Allie is a member of one of the most respected money making clubs in the world, which has taught her how to make a full time income online. If you are serious about wanting to make a six-figure income online you can join this very exclusive club by going to

Ben Curtis asked:


Traditional marketing methods are still a viable resource to engage customers, and you can use them to drive buyers to your online products as well!

Traditional marketing includes newspapers, magazines, catalogues, fliers, direct mail, business cards, radio and TV ads, and specialty products, such as pens with your logo.  These communications have been successful since the printing press, and now they can enhance your online marketing.   Here’s how.

Think of each of the traditional communications as your pre-sell for your online presence.  Imagine that you have a vitamin product, particularly helpful for eye health.  Place an ad, perhaps in a health magazine,  that extols the benefits of the product and sends the buyers to your pitch page online for testimonials and to purchase.  You have just used traditional marketing—the magazine– to direct buyers to an online purchase.

Here’s another great example.  Imagine you are a CPA in business for yourself, and you’ve recently joined the Chamber Of Commerce.  Attending one of their “Business After Hours” functions, you give out several of your business cards, and point out that more information about your services is available at your website.  When a prospect visits your website, all your accreditations, education, awards, community service, family profile, and available services are front and center.  Your site is easily navigable, and with each click, you are building credibility with the visitor.  Although your product is your service, and that is done in person, traditional marketing—your business card– drives people to your website to pre-sell them, and predispose them to select you for a CPA.

Here’s yet one more example, to get your marketing juices flowing.   Imagine you run a small local bakery which specializes in ten different kinds of pralines, shipped all over the U.S.   Twelve weeks before the Thanksgiving holiday, your brochures are sent to a large mailing list of former and prospective customers.  Your brochure is beautifully appetizing, but it can’t hope to cover all the pertinent information for shipped orders, so customers are directed online.   At your website, every kind of praline is pictured, and testimonials abound by satisfied customers from Maine to Oregon.   You don’t take phone orders anymore, as every available worker is packing pralines, so all orders are done via the website.   And how did your customers find you?  Traditional marketing in the form of your brochure brought them to you.

Don’t abandon offline marketing in your online efforts, for you may well find that the sum of the two is mathematically even more profitable than either one alone!