Offline Promotion

Believe it or not, there are still people out there that do not get all of there information online. They use the internet for business or email, and occasionally will shop online, but if you want to reach them you will have to do it offline.

There are a lot of ways to make people aware of you offline. Some are better than others, depending on your business, but they all share a common purpose with the online techniques; get your business's name in front of as many people as you can, as often as you can. Sales people use the term, “It’s a numbers game.” If more people get exposed to your message, more people will go to your site. More people at your site will mean more sales.

From pens to calendars to neckties, company names, logos, and websites appear everywhere. Some companies have built a strong enough brand that people will pay to wear their logo. Coke and M&M’s are just two of many corporate brands that people proudly display.

There is a small sporting goods store I know of that prints and gives away hundreds of shirts every year. Anyone even remotely involved in local sports has at least one shirt form this store. At any casual event in town at least one person will show up with a shirt bearing that stores name and logo. I have seen pictures from as far away as the Dominican Republic wearing one of those shirts. Anyone new in town or from any of the surrounding towns quickly learns where to go for their sporting goods.

A quick search online will give you a wide range of companies to chose from that specialize on providing promotional materials. There is a wide range of quality, price, and products to choose from, so depending on your budget, you should be able to find something that matches with what you want to accomplish.

If you're the handy and creative type, perhaps you can come up with something that you can create yourself... hand-embroidered hankies, miniature birdhouses, metal keychains, and then just have your website address printed or stamped into them.

In addition to promotional items, you can also sponsor local events, provide prizes for contests for local charities, radio stations or cultural events, or hold your own contest... for your companies new logo design for example.

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That's today's traffic generation idea. If you think about it, I'm sure you can come up with lots of ways to bring offline prospects online with different types of promotion.

Until tomorrow,

Terry