Offline and Out of the Box, Marketing Strategies

Whichever online marketing strategies you choose, there are many offline promotional activities which can be neatly tied in with your internet marketing and drive traffic to your website.

All printed material for your business should include your website address and email, and you can use print fliers or mailouts to drive people to your website for special offers, new products, the latest news or to read your blog. Also, magnetic signs can be affixed to any vehicles you may have to promote your URL when out on the road – you never know who may see it!

If you are attending exhibitions or trade shows, it is always worth having a laptop with you so you can show people your website, and it is worth asking visitors to your stand for their business cards and to ask them if you can email them further information.

Your emails should always include a signature file so that every email you send out has a short 5 line 'advert' including a link to your website, a strapline and a call to action. It is surprising how many companies have not spent the few dollars on buying their own domain name or configuring their emails so that they point to the domain.

Out of the box thinking can also bring in considerable website traffic, and the possibilities are endless for guerrilla marketing. It just requires imagination! For instance, if you are trying to get local businesses to support your sandwich and cookie shop for employees' lunches, then baking cookies with your URL in and handing them out at lunchtime as people go to buy lunch can be a good ploy.

Or how about offering new and prospective clients a small discount if they can make you laugh? People will enjoy trying and you will gather all sorts of new customers who like the idea.

Another great tactic that can also be low budget is to use video. Youtube has obviously become a household name, and even a home made video can attract thousands of people to your website if it goes viral. However, be prepared for it to be parodied if it becomes very popular, and this can result in bad PR.

Above all, get to know your customers and prospects. Building relationships with them will give you ideas about how to reach them most effectively. Free content is always popular, and sending a regular email newsletter with useful tips and tricks will help establish your company name and brand in your prospects' minds, encourage return visitors, and develop loyalty amongst your subscribers.

Whichever marketing strategies that you use, you must make time to measure and monitor your success. Your traffic stats are very important and you should not neglect them. Although analysis takes time, this is the most useful information you will ever get about your visitors. By setting up goals and checking conversion rates you can ensure that all the pages of your website are achieving their aims.

If a tactic isn't working, change it. And keep trying new things to attract people to your website, and make sure that your website is fit for purpose and achieves that purpose.

The chief measure of success is not visitor numbers, nor sales, but profits so keep a weather eye on your costs and use your website and technology to keep them down.

Hope this blog post was helpful to you, - - Offline and Out of the Box, Marketing Strategies - -

Spunky Jones.

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