In today’s business environment online marketing is prevalent and certainly is much easier. However the most successful businesses still implore offline marketing strategies as well. The marketing experts at the helm of these companies feel that it is critical to the success of a business to use methods such as flyer distribution, physical signs and direct mail campaigns. Let us take a look at a few offline marketing methods in addition to a couple of online methods. Then we will also discuss how to marry some of these methods in order to show how some offline tactics help boost online results.
Offline Marketing Methods
When allocating your offline marketing budget be sure to count flyer distribution. There is no substitution for a well-designed flyer to advertise your business. For cost-effectiveness make sure it looks great in plain black and white print. Then hire some people to distribute the flyers for you. It is a good idea to check the local laws for such a thing before you take action, thereby avoiding any fines or penalties to your company.
Despite the aversion for junk mail by a large segment of the population, direct mail is still an effective way to market your business. There are plenty of people who do pay attention to what arrives in their mailbox and therefore take action after they receive it. It is possible to purchase a list of consumers who meet your specific demographics.
Online Marketing Campaigns
A couple of popular online marketing channels that are in use these days are search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing. Both of these channels can be quite effective. Let’s discuss them one at a time.
You may have heard the term SEO but do not quite understand what it means. Basically it is a way of wording your online marketing text, such as website content or industry-related articles, to maximize its ability to show up on search engines. The search engines you are likely most familiar with are Google and Bing. The better your company’s SEO is, the more people will see its name on the Internet. If you do not know how to do this yourself it is possible to hire someone who is an expert.
Although social media sites may have begun with a look at Aunt Mary’s meal of the hour, nowadays it has blossomed into an excellent way of getting your business name and information out there. Most of the major sites have the means to build and publicize your company profile, as well as communicate with potential clients. This is another area where there are now experts on hand to help your company with its social media presence.
Using Offline and Online Marketing Methods Together
An excellent way to marry an offline marketing campaign with an online one is to include your website address or social media URL on your physical marketing materials. For example, you can include your website address and URLs on your flyers and/or your direct mail pieces. If you incorporate company street signs into your marketing campaign you can include your website address or your email address on there too. Whoever said you cannot use some offline tactics help boost online results was off of their rocker.
Measuring the Success of Your Marketing Efforts
Of course any business needs to have some tools in place to determine how effective their marketing efforts are. One excellent way of doing this is with a track-able 1-800 telephone number. At this point in time very few small businesses use this tool; however, those that do have found the resulting information to be quite valuable.
A superb tool for measuring online search engine optimization campaigns is called Google Analytics. This service is free and allows any company to measure their website traffic flow. If you use social media mega-site Facebook in your marketing efforts it is possible to use Facebook Page Insights to measure your engagement levels and any resulting interactions. The same is true for any content you have published on this site.
