Last updated on October 19th, 2022
Almost all the marketing plans lay emphasis more on using online platforms such as social media to take a business to the people in a big way. No doubt, taking advantage of the Internet for reaching to a vast crowd of potential consumers is a prudent marketing strategy. Unfortunately, some marketers focus solely on the online methods of business promotion and ignore the traditional offline approach completely. Many small businesses make that big mistake. They wrongly discard the offline marketing plans as old-fashioned.
The fact is that a section of your target customers does not spend a lot of time using smartphones and computers. These people still believe in personal contacts and a human touch in building relationships.
They are not a big believer of interacting and engaging with people on computers and smartphones. If you ignore sensibilities of these people, chances are that you are losing a good chunk of your target consumers.
Moreover, the marketing experts are still debating the effectiveness of social media in business promotion. So, taking no chance, many successful entrepreneurs go for a marketing plan comprising of both the online and offline strategies. They know that the old-fashioned ways of marketing are still relevant.
In fact, some studies have shown that offline marketing actually boosts the online marketing. According to a recent iProspect study, offline marketing influenced 40% of online purchasers’ buying decisions. The study came out with some interesting stats that will prompt you in including this method in your marketing plans.
According to the study, a majority of consumers said that they made an online search for a company after seeing its advertisement on TV. Television advertisement influenced nearly 44% of the consumers to search for a particular company. This establishes the importance of TV ads in driving consumers to your business.
41% consumers said that word of mouth led them to search for a company online. Magazine/newspaper advertisements were responsible for influencing 35% of the consumers and radio influenced 23% of the customers to make the search. 13% of the consumers said they made online search for a particular company after seeing its ads on billboards.
Such studies clearly reestablish the importance of the offline marketing methods. A prudent approach will be to use a combination of the online and offline marketing strategies to drive customers.
Here Are The 6 Tips To Promote Your Business Offline
01. Generate Some Buzz For Your Business
Can you create some excitement around your company and its products or services? Can you build some interesting stories to tell them to your consumers? If your marketing team is capable of generating some buzz about your business, take it to the media sources.
You can contact your local radio stations or newspapers with your story. If they find it interesting, they will broadcast or print it. You get free publicity for your business. Some television networks may also find your story interesting.
02. Publish Your Ads In Newspapers
Newspaper advertisements are excellent and effective offline way to gain your consumers’ attention. You can even publish advertisements in high schools and college newspapers. These are low-cost resources for advertising your business.
You should also approach widely read newspapers of national important if you can afford their high ad rates. But you will reap the benefits as the ads will reach to millions of the newspapers’ subscribers.
03. Use Promotional Products
Giving away promotional products as gifts to the people is a proven offline marketing tactics. Mostly, business people use some special occasions such as trade events, and seminars to distribute free items of daily use to the people with a company logo.
Distribution of promotional merchandise like bags, pen, drinkware, computer accessories, etc with your company’s logo is an excellent way to draw the attention of the recipients to your business. Promotional products are crucial for marketing any business, small or big, to win the hearts of consumers.
04. Give Business Cards
Business owners hand out business cards to any visitor who is a potential customer. A business card has the crucial details such as office address, email, phone number, logo, and slogan. Make sure that you distribute the cards very often to the people at the first opportunity during seminars and other events.
They can use the details in your business card to contact your company for business or simply to search your products online. Make sure that your business card design leaves a lasting impression on the recipients.
05. Explore Vendor Trade Shows And Offer Free Lunch
You should visit many vendor trade shows organized in your city. Find out if your small company can get a booth on sharing basis on these shows. This offline strategy helps many entrepreneurs sell products.
Another tactic is to invite your potential clients or customers to a free lunch, if you are looking for some business to business deals. You may be spending some money on the launch, but you will reap the benefits in the form of getting the deals done with the party.
You will also be introducing your products or services to the clients, which is often a good start to make a long-term relationship with the potential clients.
06. Use Handouts, Flyers, And Coupons
Handouts, flyers, and coupons are always effective in drawing your consumers’ attention to your business. You can easily generate these marketing materials using desktop publishing or brochure templates. Then, go to a crowded place and distribute these things to your potential customers.
To conclude, offline marketing strategies are also equally important to drive your target consumers to your business and company. You benefit from these traditional strategies more if you focus hard and keep a dedicated budget aside. Take the offline methods as part of your overall marketing plans.