Today, the most of marketing is focused on online efforts, such as SEO and social media. So much that entrepreneurs tend to forget how effective offline interactions still are, as well as how essential they are for taking into consideration. While your website may be your storefront, online means aren’t really the only way to attract the attention of your customer base. While we do live in a digital era where almost everyone has a computer, tablet, or smartphone, it doesn’t mean that the web is the only solution. There are still people who either prefer more tangible forms of marketing or are simply not as technologically adept as younger generations.
What this means is that your online and offline marketing efforts need to complement one another. This is how you will come up with a truly successful marketing strategy that will capture your audience no matter where they are and bring more people to your website. In this article, we are going to discuss some of the offline marketing strategies that still work very well and can spark your audience’s interest.
Print publications
Your website may contain a rich blog section, but you still shouldn’t forget about how effective print publications can be. Sure, maybe the SEO benefits aren’t the same, but print publications do a great job of boosting your brand’s visibility. So, invest in appearing in journals and magazines that are relevant to your industry. Here you can show off what kind of an expert you are in the field, and find more opportunities than just via online efforts.
Still, you mustn’t forget that you need to be selective when it comes to both platforms. Not only should the publications have a good reputation, they need to be relevant and valuable to your target audience.
Networking
The same as you use your social media platforms to connect with your audience, you mustn’t overlook the power of face-to-face networking. It basically puts a face to a name and helps you get in touch with your audience in a more personal manner. Whenever there is an opportunity to join a local organization or an association branch, where you can talk to your target audience, make sure that you use it.
This is one of the best ways to make new connections and hook people up on your ideas, products, and services, so that they will certainly look you up online to get to know more about you. By taking up such opportunities, eventually you might be called to national conferences that such associations and organizations hold, and have an even greater reach.
Visual assets
Never forget the fact that we as people are visual beings. Therefore, as experts from DisplayME advise, you need to make the best out of your visual assets, including posters, banners, fence signs, and so on. It’s all about finding just the right location, be it indoors or outdoors, where people that are passing by are sure to notice them. Also outdoor flags are a great way to enhance visibility to passerbyers.
The idea is to make them as effective as possible, by placing your promotional product or service up front, so that it’s the first thing that they see, and then placing your website address right beneath so that they can instantly find out where they can learn more about you. If you are on a budget, you can even decide to invest in digital signage. There is a variety of software out there that can help you make the best out of it.
Brand your vehicles
As you well know, images are an important marketing asset that people can relate to, and therefore become interested in what your business can offer them. When it comes to offline imagery, if your company has vehicles, why not brand them, and make them mobile marketing tools?
Here you can use your best imagery to attract the attention of anyone who is on the street at the time that your vehicle is passing by, and right underneath it, you should prominently place your website address, so that they get to see it as well during the relatively short period that your branded vehicle has to make an impact.
In Summation
Your online content may be your ace, but it doesn’t mean that offline marketing isn’t as important, and cannot, in fact, draw more traffic to your website. Basically, you need to cover all your bases, and make sure that you reach every possible member of your audience. So, make sure that your marketing strategy is the perfect combination of online and offline marketing efforts, and you will achieve great results.
Author bio: Steven Clarke is a business consultant and marketing specialist. He likes to write about his ideas and share them with the world. Steven is a regular contributor to several websites.