[Show Transcript]
I’m Randy Charach from RandyReport.com and THIS is the show that takes you from internet zero to business hero!
In this week’s report I’ll show you how to harness the power of an offline marketing campaign which will help you improve your online business. You’ll learn how you can get exposure for your brand and how to make sure your ad campaign gets noticed…and remembered.
If you want to be a marketing superhero…don’t worry, you don’t need to wear tights…you need to learn how to effectively integrate online and offline marketing. Today you’re going to discover many ways to pump up your online business with offline marketing.
Offline marketing needs a crystal clear target and strategy. Define your business goals and target your customers before you do anything else. A radio ad with a murky message will be confusing and won’t grab your customer’s attention. A pamphlet that isn’t targeted towards your customers will belly flop and suck cash right out of your pocket.
Whether your business is strictly online or you have a brick and mortar store, you want to drive people to your website, where your online funnel is waiting to pull them into your vortex of fabulous content and unbelievable offers and discounts. Driving offline customers to your online funnel lets you send targeted emails to your new and expanded customer base.
Offline marketing will be costly if you don’t execute it right, so as they say in carpentry, measure twice and cut once…really grab a hold of your niche and pinpoint customers before you take out a huge display ad in the newspaper or stuff thousands of envelopes with expensive brochures. You need to really get to know your audience…I don’t mean invite them out for dinner and a movie…that would be kind of creepy. I’m talking about researching your market to find out who’ll be interested in buying your brand – and who won’t be.
Business cards are one way to promote yourself and get your name out there. You need to have a unique selling proposition right on your card. The same rules of online marketing apply to offline marketing, so your business card needs a clear call to action and stand out message. Give them a reason to come to your website. Offer them a valuable report or a unique reward for taking the time from their busy day to visit your site.
Depending on your business, it might be a good idea to put your logo and web address on bumper stickers, pens, umbrellas, doggie sweaters, whatever. You could get a magnetic car sign made up and tool around town with your website address on the side of your car…just behave yourself…no cutting off other drivers in your company car. Be unique when it comes to offline marketing, and make it fit with your business. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
If you do have a brick and mortar store always have a sign up sheet for your customers to leave their name and email address. You can use this info to send them future offers or relevant content, and create that online funnel I talked about earlier in this report. Give them a reason to check out your online goods, a reward…a Scooby snack for signing up.
Let’s say you just opened a new fine dining restaurant…the kind my wife always wants to go to…and you want to bring people through the doors. So you place a print ad in the local paper that offers people a free entree when they purchase another one. But before they can get their free prime rib…or vegetarian pasta for you herbivores…they have to go online to enter their info and print out the coupon.
Contrary to what you may have heard, print is not dead. Print ads in newspapers or targeted niche mags are alive and kicking. Targeted ads are key if you’re advertising in specialty publications…say a finance or golf magazine…so keep it relevant.
Let me give you the lowdown on radio advertising. Radio can be effective, but only if it’s catchy and memorable. Your domain name is crucial for radio advertising…well for all advertising…but even more so for radio. Most people are familiar with dot com, so if you advertise with a dot net or dot info, by the time the next commercial comes on, the domain name extension is forgotten. If they do go online they’ll probably go right on over to the dot com version. You’ve just paid to send someone else your customer.
There’s an exception to this rule in certain countries, including Canada. We Canadians are used to certain things, like freezing cold winters, strong beer and dot ca extensions. So, if you hail from the true North like I do, your customers will be familiar with dot ca. My domain Income dot ca is a great one for radio, TV and print. It’s catchy and memorable, so think of something that will stick in your customers’ brains. That also means if you have a long, complicated business name, you should register a domain that’s easier to remember.
If you do want to use radio advertising, figure out whether you’re going to be the broadcaster or if you’re going to hire someone else to be your on air personality. Radio ads will also require a script, editing and recording time, and just like Britney’s latest album…a lot of editing and sound mixing.
If you’re an expert in your field, you might even be able to promote your website on the radio for free. Radio shows have experts on all the time – authors, business analysts, animal trainers…who answer calls from listeners who call in. If you can land a spot on a local radio show, you can promote your website.
It’s not all about you, though. Fluff is cute on baby bunnies…not on a radio show. You have to give something of value…share your experiences, or provide advice. Another important tip for radio is to provide info in sound bites. Sounds bites are small chunks of info that stand on their own. If someone flips to the station in the middle of your ad, or is distracted and tunes out before you finish your pitch, your key message will still stick with them.
Tracking your offline campaigns will help you justify your marketing expense and effort. You could post a survey on your website that asks how customers found you and improve your reply rate by offering a reward for filling out the questionnaire. You could use a special promo code on your flyer so you can track the response rate. Many businesses use a unique landing page and put a different url on a coupon or print ad to see how many people actually responded to that offline marketing campaign.
The point is, you don’t need to have a huge advertising budget to spread the word about your company. You don’t have to shell out millions to send a blimp over the Superbowl. There are so many cost effective, creative ways to turn people’s heads that won’t blow your budget, but will bring you maximum exposure for your brand.
Our question this week comes from Dennis L. from Fairhaven, Boston who wrote:
I’m a certified public accountant, and recently went into business for myself. I’ve got some promo notepads and pens I’ve been giving out, but is there any way I can get more attention and get people onto my site? I don’t have the budget yet for very much advertising.
That’s a great question, and one that lots of people face when they’re starting up. I suggest you join some relevant local trade associations. You can find lots of trade directories online that list these associations.
Start with your local Chamber of Commerce. They have all types of business and networking presentations and meetings to help people learn more about business techniques and to network.
Go to one of their meetings, and give out some business cards. Make sure you point people towards your website. Since you’ve now met some prospects in person they’re more likely to trust you and hopefully select you as their CPA, or refer you to people they know.
Well, that wraps up this episode of Randy Report. Since company’s websites, prices and quality of service on the Internet change rapidly, for my up-to-date recommendations on resources and for free tools and training, visit me today at RandyReport.com.
Today you learned
How to improve your online success with offline marketing. You learned how to target your customers, use some cost effective options for advertising your business, and how to get more people to visit you online so you can provide them with targeted offers in the future.
Thanks so much for watching. Remember, if you’d like more free reports, resources and training then visit RandyReport.com and join me again next week where you’ll discover How to get more visitors coming to your site with a successful link building campaign. Link building is at the top of the list when it comes to improving your SEO rankings so you’ll be more visible in the search engines. You’ll learn about inbound and outbound links, link building practices to stay away from, and how to get people to give you lots of link love.
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