Online Marketing in an Offline Business
Sunday, April 18th, 2010
the 400 pound gorilla in the room
I’ve been swamped the last couple weeks doing consulting work for a number of businesses and organizations. I’ve also been putting together a new workshop on integrating online marketing in an offline bricks and mortar business or service.
Frankly I was shocked to find most business totally unaware of how to use online marketing to get customers and clients into their businesses. Many when i asked about their web address they gave me a blank stare or said, “well, we’re on Facebook.” When prompted further, about how that was working, again a blank stare… no clue.
I’ll admit that Facebook seems to be the 400 pound gorilla in the room at the moment, few have really found how to make it effective. I was involved recently in a roundtable tele-conference recently and after almost two hours little headway was made in how to effectually use this “new” networking for business other then to keep customers and clients informed of what you were doing in hopes that you will be “TOM” (top of mind) when and if they need what you offer. Oh sure a couple people said they had gotten some sales from the social networking, but in the end you have to weigh time and profit investment to see if it is really an effective use of your resources.
I’m not dismissing social networking as not useful, it is, but as a direct put money in the bank marketing tool, it seems to be passive income at best.
So, what does work? As I said eariler it amazed me how many busiensses I’ve spoken with, either don;t have a hosted website or have a website that is not effective in getting leads, let alone driving traffic… thus the upcoming workshops I plan on doing both locally in person and as teleseminars for my more distant business friends and family.
In the mean time, take a long hard look at your website, (if you have one), does it invite people to want to get to know you better? Do you have a method in place to even know who they are and be able to stay in touch with them? Do you have offline methods that effectively drive people to your website? If you honestly look at your site and can’t answer yes to these questions then your leaving a ton of money on the table everyday.
I’ll be writing more on this and giving some principals that you can easily intergrate in your marketing without spending a ton of money on more advertising, in fact I’ll be showing how to reduce your overall advertising budget 25 to 75% while finding hidden marketing assets in your business.
Stay tuned…
- Rick
