Your URL is very
important

The basis behind any offline promotion
campaign for your website is of course to get your website visited more often and if
your sales letter is good enough to get more sales from these extra visitors. This
can only be done by getting the address of your site 'out there' and visible to lots
and lots of people. It's for this reason that your URL is very important, it's your
lifeline in the offline world, the amount of exposure it receives will make or break
your offline campaign. It should appear on any material you send to customers or
clients, others businesses you deal with and most importantly potential
customers.

More on where you can put your URL
offline a little later, but for now here's a little paragraph or two regarding things
which you can do online to help your offline marketing efforts. First off your
website should always have a banner (a standard 468 x 60 or larger banner
works best) at the top of every page with your website address clearly visible on
it.

The reasoning behind this it that many
people prefer to print out larger webpages with articles, stories, tutorials and the
like to read later and then keep for reference rather than read them online as
they're surfing. Without your URL on your banner people may re-read your content but
never revisit your site due to them simply forgetting your website address and you
may have lost a customer.

It's also a good idea to make available
online any recent press releases you may have issued. This is due to the fact that
many journalists and editors surf the web, if they like your company and product they
might be inclined to let their readers know why. A press release will provide them
with the latest information regarding your company helping them to do
this.

Now we'll go through where you can
promote your site offline.

Put your URL on all day to day
business items

In the day to day running of your
business you'll use many document type items. By these I refer to invoices you send,
faxes you send, checks you send, product packaging, business cards etc. Your URL,
email address and an attractive website slogan which makes people want to visit
should all be present on each of these items either in the form of a banner used with
faxes, invoices or other letterhead paper items or simple text which is generally
used for business cards and checks. You could even include your URL and if space
permits your website slogan on all the simple letter envelopes you send
out.

Television

Next we'll talk about the big one - TV.
This may well appear to be financially out of reach of all but the biggest websites
with very large advertising budgets, but no this is not true. OK admittedly you
probably don't and never will have the financial capability to run ads on mainstream
Cable such as Fox in America or Sky in Britain and Ireland, not to
worry though as such advertising is usually targeted very generally and is useful
only to sites with broad appeal such as Amazon.com or Yahoo.com.

Local cable television advertising is
much more feasible and effective for the more 'ordinary website'. This type of
advertising appears to be very reasonably priced at the moment and is particularly
effective if your product or services is oriented toward a specific geographic target
market, for example imagine if you were a Detroit web design company, simply
advertise your company and URL on a local Detroit channel. Contact a Sales
representative from your local cable company to find out more. You should of course
mention your URL on numerous occasions within your ad spot. Radio

Radio advertising can be very effective
in advertising your URL if your domain name is short, catchy and easy to remember.
Creative webmasters could develop short scripts themselves whereby their ad
incorporates their slogan which in turn incorporates the benefits of visiting their
URL. As with TV advertising radio ads work best when targeted towards a specific
demographically segmented market such as a certain cities residents. Again price wise
you mightn't be able to compete with the big boys and have ads on very popular
stations, but local stations offer good prices. Keep in mind however that prices all
depend on when and how often your ad is run.

Newspapers, classifieds and related
magazines

The print media which includes
newspapers, journals and magazines is another avenue where your can have your URL
exposed for everyone to see. It's best first to start advertising your products,
services and URL in local newspapers and then if successful continue onto regional
and national publications. If you can't afford the common graphical advertisement as
seen throughout newspapers and journals related to your industry don't worry as most
of these publications have classified ad sections. Classified ads allow you to reach
a targeted audience very cheaply with a simple short message and of course your URL
is included in there somewhere too.

Company vehicles

We all see vehicles with company names
and telephone numbers on them driving our streets and motorways. This is a great idea
as it gives potential customers the chance while out and about to learn about the
company and also learn about how to contact them should they need the service or
product they offer at some stage in the future. I often wonder why more websites
aren't promoted in this way by simply adding the company website URL also, you
definitely should do this.

If your business is an exclusively
online entity then your URL should be large and very visible to anyone who glances in
the direction of your vehicle. Again many people would be driving or walking by as
your vehicle drives by and wouldn't be able to write down a long website address so
it would be an advantage to have a short, easy to remember URL.

A word of advice before we move on, if
you do choose to brand your personal or company vehicles with your URL have it done
professionally, if your design looks poor people might be inclined to believe your
site and products are poor too. Check a local business directory to find out who can
do this for you.

Branded novelty
items

This method is a personal favorite of
mine. It involves purchasing and distributing items such as pencils, pens, t-shirts,
mugs, mouse pads, calendars, keychains, bumper stickers, refrigerator magnets and the
like. All these items will have your URL located somewhere on them helping to attract
people to your website.

Usually these items are given away for
free, however some sites such as Google successfully sell a number of items
specifically designed to improve the Google brand.

If you decide to use such items in your
offline marketing campaigns be smart about it, offer items which will be used by the
people most likely to buy your products or services, for example if you sell software
or computer components distribute branded mouse pads as computer users are likely to
be interested in what you offer. Similarly if you sell office stationary you could
distribute pens to local businesses, hopefully when they need more stationary they'll
notice your slogan and URL then come visit and buy.

There are lots of angles one can take
with this method, most can be very effective but just have a good think about it
before you order those 3000 pens, won't you! Press releases

Press releases were touched upon earlier
on in this article but now for more in depth coverage of using them for offline
promotion. Press releases or news releases as they're sometimes known are newsworthy
stories about your business that you send to various sections of the media. These
sections of the media must be related to your industry for you to have any chance of
success. Newsworthy stories are stories which readers of the media publications you
submit to might be interested in.

If the journalist reads it and likes it
he or she may publish it or some of its contents in his or her publication, if this
happens you're on to a winner because the public in general are much more responsive
to a news story than a plain old hyped up advertisement. This could mean they'll
enquire about or even purchase your products or services.

Using press releases for promotion of
your website uses the same principals, if it's newsworthy release it. Newsworthy
events for websites include website launches, website re launches and new online
services among other items.

It'll be up to you to decide what might
be of value to a journalist and hence his or her readers, however there are hundreds
of businesses that can organize what's of value into a professional press release and
can then submit it for you. I would recommend the path of using these businesses due
to the fact that if you submit a poorly written press release the journalist who
receives it will (a) not publish it or any part of it and (b) not even look at your
releases in the future so do it right the first time and hire somebody. Googles a
good place to start looking.

Others ideas

Other ideas include having flyers and
posters printed specifically to promote your URL. Flyers could be handed out locally
and posters could be placed at strategic locations such as supermarkets, malls,
social clubs and business centers, well you get the idea. Don't forget about direct
snail mailing to qualified prospects, bus and building billboards, bus shelters and
cinema screen advertising (yes you can run ads before those big movies come
on!)

Word of mouth

Last but by no means least is good old
word of mouth promotion. This is the most effective method of promotion as a referral
from a friend or work colleague creates a highly qualified prospect who is much more
likely to buy from you than anyone who wasn't referred to you.

Think about it, would you be more likely
to buy your new shiny golf clubs from a company that you first became aware of in the
classified section of the 'Timbuktu Express' or the company your best friend told you
about, the company he bought the set he loves and uses all the time from?

You must have a good product and website
for word of mouth to work, why would people want to spread the URL of a bad website
amongst their friends, family and co-workers? Well simply put, they
wouldn't.

You however for a start should tell any
people you deal with about your website and ask them to tell others, remember they
won't want to do this unless they like your setup so make sure your products, website
and customer service are top-notch.

Sorry about mentioning this for what now
must be the third time, but I feel it's necessary. Word of mouth promotion will be
helped dramatically if your domain name is short and easy to remember. If however
it's not, don't fret, I would suggest you simply buy a secondary domain name which is
easy to remember and simply redirect to your main site. Last time I mention any
domain name stuff I promise :-)

Conclusion

Above we've dealt with different aspects
of offline promotion for your website, you may have used some or all of them before,
then again you may not have ever participated in an offline marketing campaign
before. If you're one of the latter read my closing statement very
carefully.