You’ve heard about the popularity of online marketing and social media. However, what you may have forgotten about is the effectiveness of offline marketing or “traditional” sales tactics.
Finding an audience and using online means to engage your business’ target audience should not be ignored. Yet, there’s a reason successful marketers have used (and still employ) offline means to make sales.
Direct Mail
When was the last time you received a letter from appreciative brand or a store that would like to have you as their newest customer? Direct mailers don’t have to be coupons or postcard-sized alerts. Tradition has become a novelty in the age of the Internet. This is especially true if a significant portion of your target market is young.
Actually, you can infuse on and offline marketing to write personal and successful pieces of mail. Use Facebook or Twitter’s search options to see if potential customers have “posted” or “tweeted” about products or services you offer. Maybe you can mention a grievance (or sales barrier) in the direct mail, using your observations to impress them and assuage buying anxieties.
Cold Call
The adjective says it all; a “cold” call is a salesperson’s bane, but that’s only if the call is made without any kind of mutuality. According to research, cold calls are 70% more effective when attempting to connect with someone in a similar LinkedIn group. If you’ve done your homework before the call, you create a point of similar interest and way to warm the previously cold call.
Billboard
There’s a reason why brands have invested money in billboard advertising for decades; it works in attracting attention, and when done well, helps gain traction for a burgeoning brand or gets customers of competing brands to think twice about which gets their money.
Since billboards don’t come cheap, combine your efforts with research. Find potential hot spots to advertise your offerings by using search tools.
Sign Spin
You may have noticed sign spinners attracting attention from highway or busy road. They attempt to attract attention much like a billboard. While spinners do well to attract attention, there’s no immediate incentive for customers to drive onto your lot.
Yet, combining spinning with donating is a fresh idea. If you have a large lot, hire a sign spinner along with a few people who will wash patrons’ cars and inform that proceeds go to a local charity. While they’re waiting for a clean car, they may kill time by in your store and get acquainted with your services and products.
Usable Business Cards
Every small business needs a business card, but rather than expected, customary, and soon-to-be discarded rectangular shapes, call attention with something useful. For example, a significant percentage of the public own smartphones and mobile devices. People engage phones with fingers while making screens dirty in the process. Also, the need to pull phones in and out of their pocket make credit cards and money come loose, but not if they’re using a cell phone wallet.
Find Affiliates
Finding competitors is easy, yet it requires clever thinking to find affiliates, those offering something that complements your goods and services. Perhaps devising personas is a good place to start. For example, a supplier of fishing tackle may have plenty of competition in their immediate area, but far fewer suppliers make the ‘fishing dad’ connection.
The same guy who buys tackle may double as a father with children who need tutoring. You may think tutoring and tackle have nothing in common until angling parents grow interested in saving money on both needs. Use projected personas to find a commonality of interest, and pursue vendors who complement (not compete) with you.
Guerilla Marketing
Guerilla marketing is a strategy for businesses to advertise their company, very cheaply, in unusual ways (check out Ebates’ strategy). You can get your name out there by giving away things with your brand on it (i.e. pens, notepads, hats). You can leave your business cards, notes, or anything else with your brand’s name on it wherever you go (i.e. restaurants, meetings, libraries). Leaving things places will naturally spark curiosity and hopefully word of mouth will take over.
An example of Guerilla marketing was when Pinterest went to Apple stores and put their website on all the computers there. This didn’t cost Pinterest anything, but everyone who filtered in and out of the Apple stores saw this. It was a great way to organically grow their audience.
Conclusion
There are a lot of marketing strategies that have been forgotten because we get locked into the online space.We forget about tried and true, old school marketing. These seven tactics can be done without much effort and with the exception of a billboard, relatively cheap. The best part is that your competitors might be ignoring these traditional marketing practices and now you’ll have the advantage.