Internet Marketing

Friday, June 22, 2007

Advertising Offline

First of all let me say that having spent the past 20 years working closely with small businesses I know exactly what works when it comes to offline advertising. Since most of us are always online and our business is online, we often forget the importance of advertising our business offline. If you're pretty new to online business and just starting one right now, you may want to consider advertise your business offline first.

In conclusion, if you have a business that's only based online using offline advertising to make money online is a great idea because so many people today go online to get information about products and services they are interested in. If you advertise online for your e-commerce site then that is great, but advertising offline has some perks as well and you will reach people that are not necessarily Internet savvy. Advertising your e-commerce site offline can really be a boost to your sales if you know where to advertise.

Which advertising method works best -- on or offline ads? One of the main advantages of offline advertising over online is that people still believe more in what they see on TV than on the Internet. In the print media, space is limited by the cost of production which keeps ad rates high and makes the balance of content versus advertising critical to the financial success of any print publication that relies on advertising.

This difference with blog Internet advertising rates is important because in the print media world, ad rates can not go below a certain point because if they do, the publication will cease to be profitable. Actually the very nature of the World Wide Web has a lot to do with it not being suitable for traditional advertising. There are tons of creative, low-cost ways to get the buzz out about your business (flyers, charity work, postcards, bartering with other business, co-op advertising, etc.

I wish you much success in all of your offline advertising adventures. As you can see, using offline advertising methods is very powerful. Also, some theatres even have an advertising option where you can put your coupon or ad on the ticket stub.

I would definitely advise trying out some of these advertising ideas and once you get started you think of more and more. In online advertising you can get information where your visitors are coming from, what do they read on your web site, how much is your email newsletter open-ratio, how much is click/thru ratio for every link in your newsletter, also you can get demographic reports about your visitors/subscribers and many other things. Even though your business is much smaller than these, you need to look into and take advantage of offline opportunities.

The majority of consumable dollars, by a very wide margin, are spent offline. * If they are requesting a free sample, free catalog, entry into a contest or any other form of interest offer them a discount of 10% off their next order. -Give away free mouse pads.

Dejan Bizinger is a Contributing Editor for Infacta. Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with working online and I think that to make it big you need a healthy balance of both. As clear proof of this, software that blocks pop-up advertisements and unsolicited mail has been very popular online.

-Buy mailing lists and send direct mail.