The brick-and-mortal marketing is dead, long live the mortal-brick marketing.

Let's revisit some old "classic" marketing ideas, that could empower our companies in digitally hype times, with their inspirational, yet not dead approaches.

idea 1.

Take a Flyer.

Street marketing can be a cost-effective alternative to conventional television, print, and e-mail advertising - especially if there's a good reason for people to read the flyers.

Boston's Kung-Fu Tai-Chi Club relies on flyers to publicize its women's self-defense class. "Rather than be on page 20 of some little newspaper section, where people might not see us, we're on the street, actively promoting," says co-owner Yao Li.

The small ads he used to place in local papers and magazines, at a cost of $150 to $200 a week, produced a 2% to 5% response at best. So, Li tried a grassroots apporach. Students of the Kung-Fu Tai-Chi Club spend two hours distributing 500 flyers in exchange for a free session. Li credits the flyers with 90% of his class enrollment today.

"We were going to run one class every six weeks," he says, "but now we have one class every two weeks."

 

idea 2.

Community Access Channels.

Most cable TV systems set aside a channel for community and non-profit groups to broadcast local events, feature stories, and government meetings. Dave Cioffi, general manager of the 28,000-square-foot Dartmouth Bookstore in Hanover, N.H., found his company could buy time on a local channel by becoming a sponsor.

Dartmouth became a "Corporate Leader" sponsor of the channel. For $2,500 a year, a television crew came out and shot a 20-second infomercial for the bookstore, which was broadcast several times each day. In addition, they let Dave and his staff host a weekly 20-minute show featuring Dartmouth's latest books.

Sometimes, if the station was short on program content, it ran the same show 10 to 20 times a week. Dartmouth's company logo and tag line were also broadcast 12 times a day, or 4,380 times per year, as a "thanks to our sponsor" message.

"You can't buy this much TV exposure anywhere else for that price," said Cioffi. "We didn't track the response, but we knew people came in all the time asking for the books we featured on the show."

 

idea 3.

Irresistible Bait.

In every shipment of her company's product, specialty real-estate appraisal forms, Ruth Lambert enclosed a plastic fishing worm. Talk about making an impression on customers! And it worked - they bit.

Lambert's 15-year-old company was the biggest in its field, not to mention one of the world's largest users of plastic fishing worms. The company's slogan: "There's nothing funny about our service." And its name, Forms & Worms Inc., in itself was a stroke of genius, as a leading advertising executive once observed when he saw the name on a list of participants in a conference he was addressing. "Before I start," he said from the podium, "I would like to tell whoever you are from Forms & Worms, and whatever it is you do, don't ever change your name"!

 

That is a great idea! If a brick and mortar store was able to give an eCoupon/affiliate link to customers who are leaving and that link also included a small discount as an incentive for the customer to actually use it, it could be very effective.

 

idea 4.

Extraordinary Exposure.

With hundreds of non-traditional advertising vehicles at your fingertips these days, at least a handful must cut through the clutter. But when customers are bombarded with hundreds of advertising messages each day, something offbeat and out of the ordinary may be your best bet. Here are some "unique techniques": Place snappy ads...

• Where groups congregate: Ads in schools, health clubs, and bowling alleys; on call-in and on-line information services; in malls, and inside golf-course holes.
• In front of captive audiences: Ads on the telephone while on hold, on airport scheduling screens, restrooms, cinemas, phone booths; or near theme-park lines.
• In stores: Messages on aisle directories, in-store videos, carts, refrigerators, bicycle racks outside - and taped ads mixed with music.
• Any place within customers' view: ATM receipts, vending machines, taxis, trucks, floppy disks, video boxes, and on indoor mini-blimps.
  Or there's the new talking poster, which senses passerby and plays a recorded message. What's next? One company is testing slogan-decorated eggs - and another is planning ads on hot dog skins.

 

idea 5.

Rear Window.

Potential customers are everywhere, even in your rear-view mirror. So why not advertise your company on vanity license plates?

Linda Hall Gillen promoted her math tutoring services by personalizing her automobile license plate to read "MATH2TR". Although only seven parents have approached her with requests for help in the five years she's had the plate, the return on investment is still great.

The revenue from these jobs more than paid for the cost of the vanity plate. And Gillen believes it has helped establish her credibility and spread word-of-mouth advertising. Word must be spreading - a couple of years after she obtained the plate she saw a copycat car in her home town with one that read "2TRMATH."

 

idea 6.

Humor on Hold.

Nobody likes to be put on hold - least of all your customers. To alleviate their frustration, provide recorded entertainment to callers while they wait.

Creative Producers Group (CPG), a full service communications company based in St. Louis, creates off-the-wall, humorous "on-hold" messages that both inform and entertain.

Not only do the tapes entertain the clients, they present CPG`s services in an amusing way. "The messages are so enjoyable that callers don`t feel like there`re getting a sales pitch," says Keith Alper, CPG`s president. "A voice-over artist delivers comedy lines mixed with music, and the small investment pays off."

One client, who used Alper`s company for video production, learned while on hold that the company also created meeting presentations. When the client was connected, he awarded a new presentation project to CPG.

The on-hold messages have not just brought in new business - some clients have even requested copies of the tape.

 

Would you stop at this rest stop or would you say, that's weird and keep going? My youngest would probably say: "Dad, let's keep going!"

 

Flyers are still effective when done right. Alot of offline marketing strategies still work effectively if your using the direct response method. Postcards, business cards, free seminars, display ads, and advertorials are still good ways to drive response and website traffic to any business. As long as it's tracked.

 

idea 7.

Successful Bidding Secrets.

To get new business, most companies chalk up time and energy bidding on customer contracts. However, if you're up against an incumbent, the customer may just be using you to get the competitor's price down. Barry Nalebuff and Adam Brandenburger, authors of Co-opetition, suggest a couple of ways to make bidding pay.

Ask for information. Most companies won't share confidential data, but it doesn't hurt to ask for specifics, such as current costs. The way the customer handles your requests will also tell you whether the company seriously wants to work with you.

Ask to meet others in the company. You don't want to get stuck with someone who cares only about price. You want exposure to as many people in the company as possible; one might become your advocate.

 

idea 8.

Misfortune Marketing.

When competitors go out of business, don't miss the opportunity to win their customers. One of the best ways to redirect their business to your own is to have their phone calls forwarded to you. This tactic worked for Chris Zane, owner of Zane's Cycles, a $1.5-million independent bicycle dealer in Branford, Conn.

By offering to pay the local Yellow Pages a small fraction of his defunct competitor's remaining advertising costs, Zane arranged to have their out-of-service phone numbers ring at his shop. The fee was one-third the cost of his competitors' Yellow Pages ads, totalling $200 per month.

Now, when someone calls two of his former competitors, a message states: "The number you are calling is no longer in service. If you are in need of a bicycle dealer, Zane's Cycles will be happy to serve you. To be directly connected toll-free, please press zero now."

The Yellow Pages helped Zane track the transferred calls. He has received 260 inquiries from his competitors' customers in one month. The first day the line was changed, he sold a bike to a customer who had called the defunct competitor.