Why You Should Market Your Website Offline

One of the great advantages
of advertising and marketing on
the web is it’s cheaper than
traditional print based promotions.
No printing or photocopying fees.
No postage costs.

And with email you can communicate
to your prospect almost instantaneously.

So why bother with promoting
your site offline?

The biggest reason is that
most people are getting overwhelmed
by the amount of email they
receive, especially spam.

They may delete your message
thinking it’s unsolicited
email even though they have
given you permission to contact
them.

Also, the increasing use of
anti-spam software to filter
out unwanted mail is unfortunately
targeting legitimate email as
well.

I’ve been hearing a lot from other
online publishers about the decreasing
response to their email offers and
how many of their customers and
prospects aren’t getting
their ezines anymore.

That’s why I suggest you
supplement your online marketing
with a bit offline promotion.

One of the cheapest forms of
print advertising is postcards.
(No, not the ones you send to
Grandma while you’re on
your Hawaiian vacation.)

The ones I’m referring to
are blank. You feed them
through your desktop printer
as a full size sheet and
then separate them along
a perforated edge -- usually
there’s four postcards on
one sheet.

First, you need to write
the headline and body copy
for the postcard.

You don’t have a lot of
room for your message. So
you need to be succinct.

Your headline should spell
out a strong benefit of
your product. Here’s a
headline I use for my
own postcards promoting
the Information Marketing
Boot Camp.

“FREE Report
How To Set Up and Run Your Own
Home-Based Publishing Business...
and Never Create A Product,
Write An Ad or Talk to Anyone”

In the body copy, I follow
up with a quick explanation
of info marketing and then
list the great benefits
that it offers.
And then I list my web
site address where they
can get more info.

Remember, that a postcard
is similar to a classified
ad in that you can’t use
it to directly sell your
product. There simply isn’t
enough room on a postcard
to do a complete sales pitch.

You use it as the first
step in a two-step selling
process. The postcard is
only for generating sales
inquiries.

You then follow up by directing
the prospect to your website
where they can find the full
details and benefits of
your product.

Or you can ask the prospect
to send you an email and
then reply with your
sales letter.

Once you’ve captured
their email address,
you can follow up multiple
times.

You can format your postcard
in a word processing program.
I use Microsoft Word and
its Envelopes and Labels
command to set the file up
to print correctly.

Here’s a tip that Ron LeGrand,
author of the Information
Marketing Boot Camp, passed
on to me.

Go to your local post office
and buy their pre-stamped
postcards. You just run
the sheets through your
printer, separate, attach
the address labels and mail!

And, best of all, you’ll only
spend a handful of change
per postcard.