Online marketing has transferred from something done with the leftover budget to a massive business, and similarly, marketing budgets have shifted from online to offline. While in the past, being active with social media campaigns could be a differentiating thing for one, today the same effect and wow factor can be achieved by doing offline marketing activities.
If you want to bring the offline back to your marketing tool pack, try these five offline marketing tactics.
1. Public speaking
Not all marketing comes in a traditional form. Have you considered public speaking as marketing? If not, you should start doing so! Public speaking, whether in a training session, a conference, or an online event, is a great way to advertise both your company and your own expertise.
To get started with public speaking, don’t sit and wait for someone to contact you. Instead, contact the organizers of interesting events and offer yourself or another representative of your company as a keynote speaker.
2. Traditional mail
Before email and social media, there was a time when most companies did marketing via traditional mail. Today, when people receive thousands and thousands of daily marketing messages – most of them online – traditional mail can be just what differentiates you from others.
Start planning your campaign from a customer’s point of view. What would they like to receive? Perhaps a handwritten letter (remember, these can be written once and then mass-copied), a traditional letter invitation, or a smartly designed brochure?
As mail marketing can be on a more pricey side, take time to plan your campaign well to avoid unnecessary costs.
3. Warm calling
There are a ton of different lead generation tools that provide you with warm and hot leads. Instead of cold calling, catch warm leads directly from your website with tools such as Albacross, or contact people who showed interest in your products and company in an event or tradeshow.
4. Sponsoring
Sponsoring brings your company much more than just visibility by the company name on a t-shirt of an athlete. Sponsoring represents the values of your company and helps people connecting with it. For example, when a large company located in a small town supports local sport teams, they communicate the message of caring about the wellbeing of the local community. This is respected, not only by the people of the town, but others who associate with similar values.
Always build a sponsorship strategy to choose your sponsored organizations and people with. This helps you to keep the same line and all the sponsorships communicate the same brand message.
5. Samples
We all like the little treats we get at supermarkets, don’t we? Harnessing samples as your marketing tool can turn out to be effective. Find creative ways to offer samples to a selected group of users. You can combine samples with traditional mailing campaigns, or offer a sample for people purchasing a specific product from your online store, or come up with something even more creative. Perhaps your samples can be available in the university campus, if your target audience are people within that age range, or at the railway station, if you want to reach the people hurrying to their offices.
