Use Offline Marketing to Build Online Presence

Offline Marketing is something I admittedly dont do enough of; I like to think of myself as being able to get the word out there online or getting some search engine rankings but in terms of offline marketing Im hopeless. However I have been learning more and more lately so heres a few things Ive picked up and hopefully some things that you can do offline to help build your online presence or improve the appreciation of your brand!

Signs

There was a guy on DigitalPoint not long ago offering space on his van as an advertisement for quite a cheap fee and I thought I would take him up on the offer (it never went ahead). My slogan was going to be for ViperChill and something like ‘We put your site in peoples faces’. If you can get a sign on vans, billboards or anything of that nature, although it may not be truly targetted, if you have a large niche then you can get a good Return On Investment.

Letters / Envelopes

If you are regularly sending your clients or customers letters or catalogues via ’snail mail’ then why not take full advantage. Its pretty cheap to get a few thousand letters and envelopes printed with your design on it and something that is going to make people remember you more. A good example of this is Patrick Gavins company Text-Link-Ads. All the letters I receive from them are in their own design and even the envelopes have a unique design on them, something I was impressed with and I wont forget

Networking

Probably the best thing you can do to build your online presence. I say probably because I dont do enough of this but plan to be attending some conferences next year. Network at events like local blogger meetups, local area events where you might be able to hand out business cards or leaflets to company owners / potential clients. Great networking events for people in our industry are conferences such as SMX and Search Engine Strategies.

Theres so much you can do offline to build your online presence, its just a matter of getting out there, thinking smart and doing it.

2 Comments / May 31st, 2007 / Marketing

How to Build Trust Online

The real question you should be asking yourself when offering Marketing & SEO services is how you can build trust. Trust is what takes a website visitor into a potential paying client, trust is the difference between not meeting someone in person but still wanting you to work on their websites. Trust is everything. So now that we agree trust is everything, you have to look at how you can get that trust in an online environment, some things are easy some things take more time.

Show Yourself
It took me a long time to show myself in terms of picture on this blog. Partly due to the fact that I am only 19 years old and might give a bad impression on ‘experience’ or understanding of the industry but I dont think im lacking in any areas. I have a good team behind me who each have their strenghts and always get to work with new people. So show yourself, your face, your name, maybe even your family. For people to really trust you they have to know the real you. Sometimes text just cant cut it.

Learn and Share
You can build trust by really being knowledgeable in your subject, this is done by a lot of reading, a lot of learning and most importantly a lot of doing. How can you trust who is saying what is true without actually trying something for yourself. Once you have learnt then you have to share, and share freely. Dont go offering to sell something you have just learned, otherwise you have nothing to build trust with. How can people see you know what you are doing or talking about if you dont actually do or talk?

Communicate
Respond to emails from those with no budget or no real confidence, give them hope, give them some free tips. Networking offline can be a big way to get others to recommend you, hence building your trust to those who still online know your offline presence. Communication is another big factor in building trust, whether its communication through emails, a blog or even a podcast, it all helps.

Building Trust is a key factor in improving your SEO & SEM Client rates, try it!

2 Comments / May 27th, 2007 / Marketing

Google HotTrends

Yes I know its been on every blog under the sun, but I read them all and you might not, so heres announcing HotTrends from Google

An Affiliate Marketers dream?

One Comment / May 22nd, 2007 / Marketing

How To Market An Image Hosting Website

As part of my Marketing Angle series inspired by my thread over at DigitalPoint I have been offering unique marketing ideas for the webmasters there. Why? Because people start the same old site in the same niche where theres 10,000 sites that look exactly the same and offer nothing different to the next guy. You need to be unique, and you need to have a unique marketing angle to stand out from the crowd.

So Today Im looking at: How To Market An Image Hosting Website

The selected post was for Q5Pix and their Free Image Hosting website, something Im sure fellow webmasters have seen far too many of, and sadly none that shout at them they should use them. So then how can you make people want to use your image hosting from the thousands of other sites out there?

You Offer Backlinks for the 6 Most Popular Pictures

So then, lets look at the benefits:

• People are providing you image traffic, so you give them a backlink
• You have an edge that others dont have so people would rather use you (webmasters)
• If you Care about your site and build up PR this is going to be even more valuable
• Gives people something to talk about and its going to bring them traffic aswell

So then, for the sake of giving away 6 backlinks instead of showing the most popular pictures on your site (or both) you have a unique idea thats different from the thousands of other Image Hosting Websites and have given people an actual reason to visit your site. How about that?

4 Comments / May 7th, 2007 / Marketing

How to Market an Article Directory

Theres thousands upon thousands of Article Directories out there, more than likely with the intention of building traffic and making money from them, so this blog entry is dedicated on how you can make your Article Directory unique and give it that marketing angle you might just need to bring the links and traffic. This was inspired by a thread I started on DigitalPoint forums and also a submitted website (ArticleVibe), hopefully this series of blog posts inspires you to look for new ideas to market your sites that are in competitive markets, you may also be interested in subscribing to our RSS Feed if you havn’t already.

I’m going to be honest and say that looking for a Marketing Angle for an Article Directory certainly didnt come to my mind straight away, and I honestly got a pen and paper out and jotted down a few ideas (see we care about our readers ). I had a sort of clear-cut idea that could be split into two ways so here were the ideas:

Rating Authors
Implementing some sort of voting system on articles that can rate the articles, and the author of articles get a ‘combined score’. This could then be used to display the top 10 authors on the homepage, with a link back to their website. People are then more likely to submit articles to you if they think they have a chance of getting a homepage link and you are more likely to get quality content and before any other article directory gets it. (This could simply be an alternative to linking to peoples author profiles and instead link to their websites).

Allowing Comments
I havnt personally seen an article directory that is based on a freely available script that allows comments, and whilst its not a super unique idea it does have its benefits. People dont have to comment on blogs but they do for a reason, the same could go for articles. Especially if you allow the comments to have links back to peoples websites where the names where then its likely that you will build up more content on your article pages and have a regular traffic base commenting on new articles. You can find javascript and ajax scripts that will allow you to add code to pages to insert comments so this can be done relatively easily.

Article Resource
Instead of just having articles for people to use, why not show people how to write articles and how to properly market them? Turn part of your site into your own unique articles that give people tips on what makes a good article and even sources places that are good to get articles written. You could then talk about SEO / Marketing advantages or even setup a forum so people can discuss article marketing in general.

12 Comments / March 27th, 2007 / Marketing