Hi I have a printer supply website and besides online advertising I would like to market and advertise my website offline to local companies and individuals. I would send out personalized letters, postcards and flyers and offer them discounts and inform them about my site. I have a problem though. When I created my domain name I made a mistake and I did not think of offline advertising. The name of the domain is kind of complicated to remember (1printer-supply.com). If I would put this domain name on a flyer or on a letter nobody would type it correctly. I was thinking to change it but that would kind of throw out the two years of SEO work for this domain name. So to make the long story short I would like to hear some advices on how to market this website offline to local companies who needs inkjet cartridges frequently? Maybe create a new more memorable domain name (like CityCartridge.com) with some content and use it as a referrer to my existing website? I will appreciate all comments. Thanks Laz.
Do you wanna bring a lot of local people ?? Put a poster on your car window window with a very beautiful (barely dressed) chick with the text - I'm waiting for you at www.mysite.com Guess what ... tons of local traffic Cheers, Venetsian
I don't think your domain is too difficult to remember. I have seen people trying to advertise all sorts of domain names that are impossible to write down during a 30-second commercial and even more impossible to remember correctly. Also, if you are sending personal letters, the domain name will be typed out right in front of the recipients, so you don't have to worry about them remembering it right away. You can even suggest that they add your Web site to their favorites list - this way, if your letter gets lost in a pile of mail, your Web site will still be available to them even if they can't remember the exact domain name.
I knew this guy that drove the highways of the Philadelphia area pulling a trailer with a big advertisement for his dating website on it. I guess that would be considered real life spamming - lol.
As for the domain just register a new one and park it to the existing one. That way you dont have to redo any seo or anything and you get the same content with an easy to remember domain. If you are counting on Local traffic and for them to remember the domain SEO wont do you a bit of good. You just have to have an easy to remember name. I am fighting that right now with one of my side businesses. It is 96.7% word of mouth traffic and people typing in my domain or bookmarks. In which case SEO does me squat cause people arent searching it. So make it easy. Two words tops if you can and correct spellings. Perhaps even put your cities name in the domain, I assume that is what you meant, but not sure if you were just being specific or generic with the word city. I live in phoenix, so I would register like phoenixcartridge.com if it wasnt taken, or something. You can mail fliers and cards and letters, and you will get a rough 1-5% return rate, or at least I think that is typical of direc mail promos. Perhaps someone else can comment more specifically on this one. As to ways to market there are lots more. I work for a local small marketing comapany. We are constantly coming up with new and creative ways to market, as well as traditional ways. If you want a great marketing resource you can pick up "Marketing Outrageously" by John Spolstra. It is an excellent book. On Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Out...6543950?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180845695&sr=8-1 Another great book is most any one from the guerilla marketing series. Some many be better then others, but there is one that has effective ways that are low or no cost. I think it is like guerilla marketing in 30 days or something, its been a while, cant remember. The above book is excellent though, bit of a different approach, but practical and delivers results. I like results, its not about branding for me, just ethical above board, good reputation sales. Spolstra is great. Check your library for it if you dont want to buy it. Tip on Marketing and life, Jeffery Gitomer says that you need to spend an hour a day in self improvement. I find that my business goes best when I follow that rule, particularly with marketing and sales. Gitomers "little X book of X" series is fantastic too, not as much marketing though, but good. Try to do a local business exchange, maybe put their cards in a little display at your office and yours at theirs. Do it with people you do business with. Doctors, chiropractors, anyone you network with they work great. We do a lot of trading for advertising. Maybe do a co-op. Hook up with a local print shop and give them free toner refills in exchange for putting your business on the back of their fliers. As for doing the poster of the girl in your car window, that will get you traffic too, but not sales. No offense to Venetsian but that would work ok if you are a shady company or a porn company, but if your a reputible one it will kill your reputation locally. Anyway, just a few thoughts, probably more then you wanted. Did I even answer your question? lol I wouldnt say my advice is worth much, but if you would like any more PM me. Hope you do well with your business. Matt
Car Vinyls are a good way to advertise off-line... I have been working for an uncles print business before and here's what I learned... (applicable to non-web ventures also)... Advertise via car vinyls, ask your friends to put one on there cars also, even if it is just bumper stickers or windshield liners... make sure it's well-designed, as some would ask for it even without you asking. (I have a cool tribal thing designed for a local mobile phone accessories shop that everyone liked and used it in cars)... If you have enough money for a full campaign, have tarpolines printed in banner sizes and pay for spaces on establishments frequented by people like restaurants, fast food chains etc... Then you might want to rent the spaces on subway trains and buses, these are pretty effective advertising venues... Inform us of the success of your marketing campaign and what you did, we might learn a thing or two too!
Change your domain for local marketing make it simple catchy and easy to remember. e.g. :easyprintersupply.com or fastprintersupply.com. for local marketing if you know your customer well and have their postal address then flyers are still my favorite else go for new paper advertising. And as far as SEO work is concern let the site be as it is for your internet visitors.
Is this basically the same thisng that Kizol adviced me? Yes I am thinking to register a new domain name. I want to put up an index page that would resemble the existing website design and would give specific information for the local companies with links to www.1printer-supply.com. However, I am concerned that search engines would see this as doorway page and that is not too good. Or can I just redirect the visitors from the new memorable domain name to a specific page of the old domain name where I could write some targeted sales letter? For example special discounts for local companies? That way I would be able to measure the traffic I receive from the flyers and letters I send out. Thanks for the answers. I appreciate it very much!
About the best method I know of for getting your name in front of local businesses is to get involved with your local chamber of commerce, most of them have a weekly or monthly luncheon and you will get a chance to network with lots of local business owners, drop your business card off at the tables and hand them out every chance you get.
Put a giant posterboard on your front window of your house. People will be like.. what the fu**, and remember your URL.. lol
That's exactly what I was thinking. If the redirect is fast enough, or if you provide a direct link, redirecting to an easier to remember domain shouldn't be too much of a problem. I see it all the time, even on major sites like USFreeAds.
Just a side note, but there is a brick and mortar store near me which sells printer cartridges. I hadn't known there was such a store until it popped up. Cartridge World USA, 400+ stores See where they advertise.
I think you're on the right track and have had some great feedback (most) LOL. If you create other URLs that link to your page and use those for other advertising methods, you'd be surprised by the outcome. Feel free to contact me and pick my brain! Best of luck! Wishing you Success, Jill
Newspaper, IT magazine, poster and billboard is the good idea to advertise website locally. But the best option is to advertise your site online through website promotion.