January 2016 Small Business Strategies Newsletter
New Year, New Strategy
The best thing about the new year is the opportunity for a fresh start. It might seem like you have to have all of your marketing online in 2016, but that’s not totally accurate. While it is crucial to have a website and a social media presence, it is critical that you also have an offline presence to go along with your online marketing efforts to maximize your impressions.
Online and offline marketing can work as standalone strategies, but connecting them will yield better results. Your online marketing efforts should be tied to your offline efforts to reach a much larger audience. By connecting online and offline marketing, you’re painting a consistent picture of your brand.
The first step in creating a consistent brand is creating a logo that works for all mediums, online and offline, including websites, social media, signage, business cards and other promotional products. This is a great way to establish your brand and let people know who you are and what you’re all about.
Use Offline Marketing to Drive Online Traffic
Try rewarding store customers and visitors with discounts and other promotions or sales when they sign up for your newsletter. It’s an excellent way to not only grow your mailing list, but to also show your appreciation to customers who took the time to visit you online.
- Start by allocating space in your store for a sign-up section where visitors can leave their name and email address to receive your newsletter and timely updates on upcoming sales and promos. By signing up, they will also be eligible to receive exclusive discount codes (via email) that are only given to customers on the mailing list.
- Using a fishbowl to collect business cards is a great way to get clean and reliable information for potential clients.
- If you can, set up a tablet or computer where customers can sign up for your mailing list, newsletters, or promotions. Try using a signup form program like MailChimp to automatically compile the contact info into email lists.
- Place discount codes, website URLs and social media links on business cards, posters, billboards and other offline marketing materials. Build your following by using signage, business cards and employee uniforms to promote your website and social media page.
- Don't forget to inform patrons that they get extra points (in the form of special discounts) if they follow you on social media.
- Every time you have something new to share with your customers, such as new products, sale days or the launch of your new website, flyers can be an effective offline marketing tool to deliver your message, along with emails. They’re affordable, easy to deploy and give you the most bang for your marketing buck
Online Marketing Can Help You Offline, Too!
To help drive more visits to your physical store, try running a contest on social media. This can be as simple as a contest where customers can win physical prizes or discounts redeemable at your store, by posting on your Facebook wall, retweeting your posts on Twitter, or sharing your photos on Instagram. You can also announce in-store contests on social media, such as ‘Today only, the first 50 visitors will get a free item/discount’ or any other similar contest that can drive immediate foot traffic to your store by creating urgency.
Online and offline marketing strategies were meant to be used together as complementary pieces that can help you reach a wider audience. Customers want a seamless and consistent experience everywhere, and presenting them with a message that’s the same across all channels can be the difference between marketing success and failure.
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