Just sharing a few offline promotions that have worked for some of my websites: 1. Business Cards: Business cards are so small, cheap and can contain a good amount of information. Definetely a great way of promoting your website. Can also leave a box of cards at your local businesses so interested people can pick them up. 2. Letter Box Drops: Similar to above. Printing out leaflets/brochures and getting them distributed, is very cheap these days and can see some decent results depending on the type of web business you run. 3. Local Newspaper Advertisements: Great for web businesses with a local theme. 4. Notices: A great free easy way that may get you new visitors to your website. Try sticking a notice or pinning business cards on the noticeboard at your work/school or uni. Again if your website is relevant to these people you could get some new visitors for nothing.. One i haven't tried, but have started to notice more regularly is people having the sticker for their website on the back window of their car. I guess this could also work well by printing some cool stickers and giving them away for other people to have on their cars? I'd love to hear of any other ideas anyone else has.
These are some great ideas. I especially like the bumper sticker one because you could probably get bumper stickers printed up pretty cheap and get other people to also market your site by distributing them. Hold a contest online for free gift set that includes stuff printed with your logo and site such as a coffee mug or a pen/paper set. You can even give these away to local fundraising events. Write a couple of articles for a paper or newsletter in your niche of business and be sure to include your web address in your bio section.
Yes, have found trade shows are a great place for promotions. Find a trade show in your niche then visit and do a promo drop or something. Alot of people all in the same place interested in that particular niche, can mean some great results!
There are thousands of offline marketing techniques, i can't say i have tried any.. But 1 day im going to make the dumbest site ever, abit like jewboy.com and advertising it to the nuts.. Hopfully i could make a tidy sum of cash..
I have personally not had success with Business Cards, and i would leave them literally everywhere, even posted through letter boxes, visits to the bank, left them there too. Im sure business cards could be ideal for some businesses though and possibly bring good results.
I've seen a small banner anchored on a ground, right before entering a freeway. It was for a local dating site. Small enough to be cost effective and big enough for people to be able to read it. It said something like: Single? domain name with city name within I thought it was a good one, will cost maybe a $10 or less per poster until the cleaning crew removes it. They placed them on the ramps, on a grass next to the road, of busy freeways and it's been going on for a while, for at least 6 months, so, I guess it's working, if they keep doing it.
give out useful stuff is quite useful .. i have distributed Free Tshirts/Stickers ( with my site name printed over it ) to my site visitors and it bring lot of hits
You cant expect even an ad in classified on 40 number of page can click for big deal. Just taste the interest of audience and choose a cost effective method that most suitable to your niche.
Flyers and brochures Ad on car yellow pages Organizing seminar/event and trade shows. Agreed with above, could try local supermarket for poster slots as well
There are a lot of ideas on this thread. Is there anyway to find out which ones are working and how well they work?
Direct mail using postcards has worked well for me. When I mail out 1,000, I get about 70 online visitors from it and about 10 direct phone calls. I offer a free physical therapy marketing brochure detailing an important physical therapy marketing strategy. I typically prefer postcards for this type of direct mail because the postage is much less expensive for postcards compared to letters and brochures.