Offline Advertising and Marketing Methods

Many people never think of advertising a website offline. Actually, depending upon the website and your market, this can be highly effective. Some people print their URL on business cards, flyers, or bumper stickers. Others distribute inexpensive items like tee shirts or coffee cups. Still others use classified ads in newspapers to advertise their product and/or website URL.

Virtually anything that could be used to advertise a "bricks and mortar" business can also be used to advertise an internet business. One of the oldest methods is direct mail advertising.

Successful Direct Mail Advertising

Direct mail is a lot like Opt-In email. Many people think that they shouldn't send out a direct mail piece or an email newsletter because everyone else is doing it. Guess what? If everyone else is doing it, there must be a good reason! Targeted direct mail is often the best and most cost effective traditional advertising method to use. A good response rate for a direct mail advertising piece is around 3%. This response rate is similar to the conversion rates for a successful internet marketing website. Online conversion rates (percentage of site visitors who will buy something) in the 1% to 3% area are considered quite good.

How do you launch a successful direct marketing or direct mail strategy? In order to have a successful direct mail piece, you must have the following ingredients.

• A eye catching card or flyer.
• A good, clean (recent) mailing list.
• Timely follow up to customer inquires.

Your direct mail piece must catch your customer's attention. Let's face it, everyone is trying to get the customer's attention. We all get plenty of junk mail every day. If yours is going to be the one that they open, or the postcard that they read, something about it has to attract the recipient's attention.

A good clean list means a recent list that includes current subscribers or members. You can get these lists from associations, the circulation office of magazines and industry or trade groups. Almost every one of these organizations will sell or rent you a list!

You can also buy leads from my favorite leads vendor. You can specify that you want leads which have addresses and phone numbers.

Beware, though, the leads this vendor (and most any online vendor) provides are specifically "opportunity seekers", so if your website sells tangibles like pet supplies, buying these leads is pointless. They are, however, great leads for marketing any sort of business opportunity.

Timely follow-up. If you are a small company or an individual, it is a good idea to send out your direct mail piece out in staggered quantities. If your direct mail piece is successful and your phones are ringing off the hook or emails are flying in, you can get swamped. Not responding to inquiries promptly is a major mistake.

The key ingredients for successful offline advertising are very much the same as the critical factors for a successful e-marketing web site, or for a good email marketing campaign. Watch your costs, and track and analyze your sales for best and most cost-effective results.