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Creative Offline Website Marketing TechniquesAdam Senour Although the vast majority of website traffic is the direct result of search engines, there are many offline marketing techniques that can be used to draw customers to your website. The examples listed below are but a few ways in which you can market your online presence to an offline audience in an inexpensive manner. Some of the examples listed below even can be implemented at no extra cost! Some of these ideas are fairly common, but some are rather unique and I personally have only ever seen them employed once, twice, or at most 3 times. But why would I want to do this I already deal with these people offline. Most businesses are not open 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 365 days per year. Most websites, however, are available on a 24/7/365 basis. Many people, especially those with busy lifestyles, tend to use the Internet during non-business hours. To give a few examples: business owners will often check their emails and visit suppliers websites later in the evening; and consumers looking to make a high-value purchase, such as a car or house, will often research their purchases online in advance well into the wee hours of the night. Some of these techniques will also generate new clients as well; the possibility exists that you will attract a client whom you have had no prior dealings with. If you employ some of the offline marketing techniques listed below, it could very well be your site and company that they deal with first! Include your website and email address on your business cards and other print marketing material. While this may seem rather obvious, most businesses do not elect to do so, and it usually ends up costing them potential revenue and profits as a result. Let people know you have a method where you can be reached and information on your companys products and services can be found at any time. Use your company vehicle as a "billboard". Automotive decals are a relatively inexpensive way to advertise your companys services. Depending on what you want, decals can cost anywhere from approx. $20-$200 CDN, and will last until you choose to remove them from your car or truck. The best part is that every time you want to reach a new target market for your advertisement, all you have to do is drive! Note: there are more expensive decals available, but these are usually combinations of text and artwork. The text portions of the decals tend to be minimal in cost, as they are the simpler elements. Ask potential offline advertising suppliers for an "ad study". Some advertising suppliers have a method whereby they will offer the advertiser a sample advertisement or placement as a form of an "effectiveness" study. In exchange, the advertiser agrees to reveal the full results of his/her marketing campaign to the supplier. This isnt something that very many companies do, but the few that do are generally suppliers worth dealing with. Incorporate your website into face-to-face conversations and telephone calls. Your customer may be looking for a specific product or service which may be outlined on your website. Guide your customer to that page and let them read the information over, being prepared to answer and ask any questions that may arise from said information. More Ideas Press releases. If you have a new product or service, create a "media" section for your website that outlines its details and promote the hyperlink via press release to various mass media. PR Web is an great resource for mass-broadcasting a press release to thousands of newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, and similar media managers---and its free! Promotional clothing. If your business has "uniforms" or "staff shirts", then including your website hyperlink on these items is a great way to promote your business at no extra charge. Microsoft takes this concept one step further; every time a user successfully completes their OEM System Builder exam, they ship the user a free Microsoft t-shirt via UPS with nothing except for the Microsoft OEM website URL on the back. Another creative use of this concept is provided by ADAM Web Design client Regional Shows, who used their online logo on the jersey of a kids baseball team as a form of sponsorship. Other promotional items. Pens, mouse pads, coffee mugs, baseball caps, and other such promotional items are great places to include a company website hyperlink. Outdoor signage/signboards. Catch the attention of people who are driving by your place of business with your website URL along with your company name, phone, fax, and common email if any. They may be driving by and not have time to stop in and visit your business, but they may visit your website when they have the time to do so to gather more information. Note: be sure to check with your local municipality to ensure that outdoor signage is in compliance with its by-laws. Some cities and towns do not allow exterior property signage. A Tattoo. A tattoo As strange as this may seem, this is something that can be very effective. Body modifications have the unique property of being able to attract the human eye to them, and a website URL tends to stick in ones mind as being a rather unique idea for a tattoo. A friend of mine, when she ran a small personal site, used to promote it in exactly this manner. These ideas should give you a starting point for future offline advertising creativity, as well as give you some ways to see a return on your website investment with very little time, effort or money. Good luck!
| | | | RELATED ARTICLES Basic Web Design Principles Home Page Protecting Your Business From Spam Even being as careful as possible with my email address, I still used to receive more than 100 email messages a day, which is no exaggeration. Only about 10% of those emails were from people that I knew and the rest of the messages were unwanted email…”spam”. And I’m sure you can relate to my frustration. It is estimated that over seventy-six billion unwanted email messages were delivered in 2003, costing companies more than $10 billion each year. Building a Church Website Have you been asked to build a website for your churchBuildingThere are thousands of people building websites everyday.It is becoming increasingly important for many small organizations and groups to build their online presence.This helps in getting their ideals, goals, and mission out to the general public.Therefore at an increasing rate many of us with computer skills are asked by organizations to put together a website.This happened to me about two years ago when the school I worked at asked me to build a website for them to help advertise their special arts programs. Web Site Professionalism What Is It Your web site should be-visitor friendly to navigatesearch engine friendly for the crawlersAutomated with ecommerce and subscription forms... How to Boost Your Chances at Having a Successful Web Site New Web sites are springing up online by the millions. However, when they don’t reach a level of success, the Web site owners assume that they can’t make money off the Internet. Image Formats-GIF, JPEG, BMP When browsing the internet you are likely to come across many different image formats. However, the most common formats are: CompuServe GIF, JPEG, and Bitmaps. How to Select a Web Site Host So, you know how to create HTML files web pages and want to start a website. You have a domain name but dont know where to store the files web host. You find countless web hosting companies offering a wide range of products but you cant make heads or tails of all the features to decide which plan is right for you. How to Create a Links Page and Build Page Rank One of the hardest achievements for a webmaster to obtain is a solid links page and great web site page rank. You know as well as I do that it is very difficult to obtain well page ranked reciprocal links. Especially when your actual links page is PR 1 or 2! There are ways to construct a links page with good page rank and reach a great page ranked web site. How To Get Repeat Visitors To Your Site When you have a website online it is important for you to try and get new visitors to your site, but it’s also important to take care of the visitors that you actually already have. This is because you will want your existing visitors to keep returning to your site again and again. Marketing Your Web Site Congratulations!Your Web Site is finished!Now whatYour first instinct is to submit to every search engine possible and leave it up to them to bring traffic to your site.Despite what you may have been told, it doesn’t happen quite that way.Yes, you will need to submit to the search engines, and they will eventually bring traffic your site.It will take anywhere from 3 – 6 months for a search engine to even get you listed.After that another year or so to make it to the top of the listings, that is, if you are extremely diligent in promoting to them monthly and following all the different rules for each search engine. Color Psychology in Marketing On the internet we dont deal with face to face selling. The internet is a visual and psychological medium. The words, or sales copy, on your website have by far the greatest psychological impact on your visitors and thus becomes your most important communication and sales tool. Website Maintenance: What does it take to manage your website Every action has a beginning phase where you launch your activity, a middle period in which you must sustain and develop it and a conclusion. Many people set up a website enthusiastically but then they find that they don’t have the skills or knowledge to maintain and develop it. So, what are the challenges in this middle phase of a website’s life and how can you meet them Buyer Beware: Web Hosting, Registration, and Site Building "All in One" Package Nightmares Starting out in any type of online marketing or Internet business can be confusing and overwhelming. There are so many different aspects of a start-up: domain name registration and purchase, Web site host purchasing, and of course, the "building" of the Web site itself. This leaves many consumers looking for an easier way to purchase everything in one place, both to save money and to save time. Bound To Your Old Expensive Web Host by Fear Bound To Your Old Web Host’s Sky High Rates By Fear Optimize your Photos for the Web It doesn’t matter if your emailing photos of your grandson or putting images of your latest product on your online store. Too many people don’t consider optimizing their photos for the web. We’ve all been on too many web pages where it seemed that the photos would never load, and sometimes they didn’t. So here are some steps to make sure that your photos show up on your site. Email Newsletter Format:HTML or Text An email newsletter is probably the most effective way to communicate with your target audience. One of the main considerations before you create and deliver an email newsletter is what format to use: HTML or Text. Weave Your Own Web Many elementary school children know the miracle of Charlottes Web.Weaving the words "Some Pig" into the center of her web, Charlotte keeps Wilbur from the frying pan.E.B. Whites story provides some fascinating guidelines for web spinning. Create your own Audio studio for under $100. Creating your own audio studio has never been easier. There are so many great products around today that will allow you to produce high quality audio for a fraction of the price it used to cost. How To Build Your First Web Site Getting Started! Colors for Your Website Oh Yes ..Colors! There are hot ones, cool ones, earthy colors, spiritual colors and every other shade in the rainbow! What colors should you use for your website |
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