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How To Promote Your Online Business Offline |
By:
Izzy Brewer |
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How To Promote Your Online Business Offline.
There are a number of great ways to promote your online business
offline. Combining offline advertising with your online presence
will create momentum and increase your profits. There are a
number of ways to promote your business offline. Generate
traffic. Produce sales. Increase profits. Those words are gold
to every business with a Web site. But an overwhelming majority
of entrepreneurs don't ever reach their goals of gold. This is
mainly because there seems to be an unwritten code of Web
advertising. It states you can only be successful on the
Internet if you are using online advertising methods like search
engines, banner ads and buying online ad space. True, this
should be a factor in any company's marketing efforts but
there's an old rule of advertising you should Consider...
offline. There are three main offline-advertising mediums worth
investing in to drive people to your site. Print, television and
radio ads are fairly inexpensive and have the power to promote
your dot com presence effectively. It's cheaper and more
effective than you think.
Print Newspaper advertising Newspaper advertising is an easy way
to get your message in front of a large audience. When placing
these kind of ads you want to put them in the business
opportunities or work at home section of the classifieds. If you
are only going to run them one day a week focus on the Sunday
edition as this normally has the highest circulation. If
possible run the ad consistently as this will build some
familiarity with the readers and will lead to better response.
Be sure to find out the circulation and compare the cost with
the circulation to find the best deals. I would also suggest you
"test" a few different ads and keep track of the results of
each. Here are some examples of ads I have run recently: STOP
reading classified ads make money from them instead... If
they're making money you can too: For example:- We recently
signed up to the affiliate program at www.cashloopholes.co.uk,
They pay 50% commissions on their product. In the national
exchange and mart it costs just £80 for a one week advert in the
business opportunities section. There were other betting guides
in there and they have been for a long time so I knew they were
making money. This one guarantees to win, 100% of the time. None
of the others can do that so we was one step ahead already by
promoting such an exceptional product. The ad read FREE MONEY
LOOPHOLE If You Could GUARANTEE, With Absolute Certainty, The
Outcome of an Event BEFORE You Placed a Bet... How Much Money
Would You Invest? WWW.CASHLOOPHOLES.CO.UK
As it's in the business opportunity section this ad immediately
captures the attention of the reader, it's intriguing and causes
the reader to want to know more We placed the ad for 4 weeks and
we set up an ad tracking service so we knew how well we were
doing with it. In all we received Approximately 500 hits a day
and made on average about 10 sales a day. Do the maths and you
will see how profitable offline advertising can be. During the 4
week tester period we also had 46 people sign up as an affiliate
under us earning us 15% of whatever sales they made. I am not
saying this is the only or best product to sell, This is what we
first used when we first started advertising off-line and it
paid of extremely well for us. We have increased the ad size now
costing £290 a week but the increase in traffic makes up for the
extra cost 10 fold. Its always good to start small and cheaply
first though. Always test the market before ploughing all your
advertising budget on it. Lastly I would recommend trying at
least three different papers with three different ad copies and
expand from there as your budget allows. Direct Mailing put
yourself in the shoes of your direct mail recipients. Avoid
direct mail deadly mistakes or your materials will end up in the
trash too. Before you even begin to put your direct mail
campaign together, you've got to know who your target market is.
Are they women? Parents? Young? Old? Understand what motivates
them. What are their likes and dislikes? Write as if you're
talking to them. And even use terms these types of people would
use. But all the fancy graphics and the most beautifully created
sentences in the world won't do you a bit of good if you don't
carefully select the people on your mailing list. If you're
selling adult diapers, you want to target senior citizens...not
23-year-olds. Tighten your mailing list as much as possible to
be sure it's tailored to your needs. It's tough to make people
believe they need your product and even harder to convince them
they need it now. But if you've researched your list, you have a
higher chance of hitting potential customers instead of the
trash can. You've made your list and checked it twice,
so-to-speak. It's the perfect list. Now it's time to write.
Define your objectives before you start writing. Stay focused
and hit the points of your objective. If you get off track, your
reader is going to stop reading. Spend a lot of time on your
headline. Just remember how you feel when reading mail that
comes to you. After you read that headline, do you keep reading?
The headline can make or break your direct mail campaign. Does
price really matter? Not unless you know what you're getting for
that price. Hook your reader with all of the product benefits.
By the time they get to the end, they should be saying, "I can't
live without that!" And then you let them in on the price. Even
if the price is extremely low, you have to tell potential
customers about the product first. Disclosing this price
shouldn't put people into shock. Is your product priced
according to the market? If you're selling a new teddy bear, it
should be priced within reason. Not many people will pay $90 for
a tiny teddy bear, right? Truth is, a lot of direct mail goes
unanswered because the products are unreasonably priced.
Success! Your potential customer read all the way through your
mailing. Now what? Did you tell the reader what you want them to
do? You can't sell if you don't tell. Your readers need a call
to action. Tell them to send in the card, call you, etc. Then
tell them again. Once your direct mail is ready to go, test
several smaller mailings before sending out a huge chunk. Test
each of these mailings by changing a few items when you send
them out. Have two or more sales letters you test against each
other. By testing, you will find out which of those mailings are
bringing in more responses and - hopefully - more orders. Stick
with the clear winners. Remember the saying, "If it ain't broke,
don't fix it." Direct mail is a waste of money for a lot of
people. But it doesn't have to be for you. Understanding direct
mail deadly mistakes -- and avoiding them -- will lead you to
sales success!
Flyers The next offline advertising method I am going to talk
about in this article is a simple flyer. These are a great way
to get your website in front of a wide audience. Make 1000
copies and dedicate yourself to handing out all of them in the
next 7 days. Here are just a couple of places to hand these out:
around your neighbourhood or a large neighbourhood nearby, place
stacks at local restaurants, dry cleaners or other places of
business, or go to your local college campuses and find areas
you can place your flyers. Novelty advertising There are loads
of novelty ways to advertise. Use your imagination and be
original. Depending on the product you could have your web
address printed on t-shirts and give them away to tourists. If
you make them bright enough they will wear them with big smiles
on they're faces all day advertising your website Try printing
on mouse mats, pens, balls or any other novelty item. It doesn't
even always have to be related to your product to get good
results although a related gimmick can work wonders. Million
Dollar Bills are another great way to advertise offline. If you
haven't heard about these before you can check them out at
"http://www.milliondollarsource.com." These can be used a number
of different ways including as an attention getter, door opener,
response generator, networking device, or simply to get a smile
out of the recipient. I would recommend ordering a minimum of
2000 and handing them out as quickly as possible. You can even
hire someone to hand them out for you if you are short on time.
As strange as this may sound to some of you this method works
great and is worth the cost. Statement inserts Even huge
corporation's send statement inserts. You're going to send a
statement to your customers anyway, why not throw in some
advertisements for yourself? This can also be done when paying
bill, you think all them people sat at there desks all day don't
want nothing better from life. You get all the advantages of
direct mail without paying extra for a separate mailing. Take a
look at these numbers: Complete direct mail packages run between
$200 and $600 per thousand. In contrast, statement inserts are
only $6 to $15 per thousand. A huge savings for you. You can
also use statement inserts to test a new product. If your
product doesn't generate much interest, you can easily change
your advertising angle. But if you've pumped all your ad dollars
into commercials, print ads and a solo direct mail campaign
without results, changing direction is much harder and more
costly. Now the bad news. You get your statement and there's an
insert for a high-ticket item inside. Chances are, you're not
going to shell out the big bucks for something knew when you've
just received this blow to your billfold in the same envelope.
That's why your statement insert should advertise a reasonably
priced item. Save your top-dollar items for your high
advertising dollars. Those big prices won't pull in a lot of
orders off a statement insert. Be sure to watch the weight of
your mailing too. You can pack a lot in a 34 cent mailing. But
anything over one ounce will cost you more in postage. You
should also consider using a large statement insert. Packing
your mailing full of smaller inserts may seem more logical but
research indicates larger inserts have higher response rates.
Three panel is most popular, followed by two panel. If you
choose to send out a single panel, pack it with information.
Deliver the offer, product, copy and audience to pick up the
slack in size and details. Order forms must be easy to fill out
as well. Keeping your customers waiting for several months, even
weeks will reduce your chances of that customer becoming a
repeat buyer. Consider having a customer service department
solely devoted to your featured product. If someone doesn't
receive their order or has other complaints, you need a staff
that will handle those concerns immediately. Handled correctly,
a good CSR can turn an irate person into a satisfied customer.
And that customer will tell a friend about how you solved their
problem. Get the most out of postage rates and your ad dollars
with statement inserts. Who knows? Your customers might even
start looking forward to receiving your bill! Radio
A 30- or 60-second radio spot is quite a bargain. Rates vary
depending on your area's population. Even still, you can
negotiate a cheaper price and receive a better rate if you buy a
bulk amount of commercials. One of the many advantages of radio
is that you can target your audience. Specific age groups and
lifestyles are all defined by the station's format. Ratings also
help determine this information and can help you choose the best
station and time slot for your company's commercial. The key
components of your radio commercial include your name, address,
telephone number and selling message. But be sure to ask
listeners to visit your site. Repeat your URL at least twice
and, again, tell them what they'll gain by visiting. Television
Get ready to shatter the myths about television commercials. You
don't have to be a major corporation or have tons of disposable
ad dollars to hit the airwaves. Buying airtime on your local
television station is actually very affordable. But for an even
lower rate, check the cable TV companies in your area. Airtime
is significantly lower than broadcast television ad rates. You
also have the added benefit of reaching a specific target
audience. If you sell sporting goods, your ad can run on
SportsSouth and ESPN for the best possible prospects. Your cable
operator can even gear the commercials to a zip code or local
community. Infomercials aren't too far behind commercials as a
low-cost, traffic-building tool. Even a 15-minute infomercial
can explain your products/services and promote your Web site at
the same time. Just like with print, make sure your URL is
prominently displayed in your commercial and/or infomercial.
Keep in mind, not everybody has a big screen TV at home and this
can make a huge difference to a potential customer with a 19"
screen. Conclusion New technology forces us to adapt to new
advertising means. But sometimes old school techniques are
overlooked when, in fact, they can actually help propel business
into the money-making wave of the future. Don't just do it once
and be happy with your results, if something works keep
repeating it and as you make money put more money into your
venture. Best of luck to you all. Izzy Brewer
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Article Source: http://www.statssheet.com/articles/article40381.html |
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