Offline Advertising Tactics
for Online Business

Internet marketing can get crazy at times.  The mad rush for a share of the online pie can be stressful and hectic.  The rewards may be promising, but a lot of effort is certainly demanded to reap such benefits.  Often, however, we tend to forget that the World Wide Web is not the only source of visitors and potential clients.  It’s not always about pulling online users to your website.

It should also be a matter of pulling offline people to try out your website online. 

There are many ways by which you could promote your products or services in the real world.  You may not have immediate access to the global audience that is provided by online channels, but you’ll be able to expose your business message to an entirely different set of people.  Marketing is still a numbers game, and the more people you would get to expose your business message to, the better chances you have of winning customers.

A word of warning, however: offline advertising is not really as cost-effective as an online campaign.  You will have to spend, as your promotional message would be carried out by tangible goods.  Consider this as a worthwhile investment, though, as it will eventually pay off in the long run.

Here are some ways by which you could promote your online business offline:

• Through direct mails.  This is how businessmen used to do things before the advent of the Internet.  However, you could do something better than delivering a sales copy direct to the recipient’s mailbox.  Instead of the usual sales pitch, you could offer them free, useful lessons about the opportunities that await them online.  The less salesmanship that is painted on your letter, the more you stand to win their trust.  Remember that people are tired of receiving all sorts of sales offers through their mails.  By offering them something they could learn from, you will be giving them something different that they would feel is worth their time.  Include your URL, of course, so that they would know where to go to online.

• Make use of business cards.  This is yet another tactic during the pre-Internet days.  Exchanging business cards still works today.  But you could do things better by including your URL on the face of your cards.  Remember that business cards manage to circulate within networks.  It would serve you well of a link to your website would be prominently displayed in these type of paraphernalia.

• Direct packages.  Instead of sending mails, send digital products in universal media devices, like CDs or DVDs.  Whatever digitally deliverable campaign you have been conducting through the World Wide Web, you could most certainly store in data discs.  Freebies like eBooks, special reports, trial programs and the likes can then be delivered to your targeted recipients.  You’d have links to your website strategically placed within the content of the discs.  By receiving CDs and DVDs, your recipients would be compelled to use their computers and hopefully log on to the Internet and visit your website.

• Advertise in the local papers.  Having your URL displayed in a periodical read by millions of people would expose your online business to a new and wide audience that your competitors may have not reached yet.

• Print your URL on a variety of paraphernalia.  Mugs, bumper stickers, t-shirts… the possibilities are only limited by your imagination, and your budget of course.  But there’s a whole new world of options that you could choose to deliver your business message to the real world.

Marketing your online business offline is not all about reaching a new audience, however.  It’s also about branding your business as a credible and reliable provider of goods or services.  Advertising your URL gives people the impression that your business, though Internet-based, is something committed to its craft.  Hence, this would make them feel more confident to deal with you in the future.