Offline Marketing Results Dramatically Improved by Online Marketing

Offline Marketing, also known as “Local Marketing”, is a hot topic these days.  Every Online Marketing ”guru” and his brother (or sister) will tell you, the typical small business owner, that offline marketing is easy to learn and implement for your company.  The reality is you need to master many “Online Marketing” strategies and tactics to create real results for your business.

Your simple or “pretty” website you already have … or plan to get soon most likely won’t do the job you need.  A website without traffic is like a car without gas.

Unfortunately, traffic generation is not that easy to do.  Effort is only one part of the equation, but it does not guarantee RESULTS.  The biggest challenge for most stores and other small businesses is hard to remedy.  If you desperately want or need more customer traffic, you need to find the time and develop the expertise to truly succeed.

Let me tell you an important “secret” about all this Online-Offline traffic generation stuff.  You should NOT do it in-house unless you have a big enough budget to set up a separated department and appoint or recruit a skilled manager to run it.

A brilliant mentor of mine once told me:  “You should only focus on the tasks you are really good at … AND passionate about.”  Society and your old teachers had it wrong.  Don’t invest a lot of time and energy doing the things you “don’t get” easily or that you hate to do.  You will not usually be rewarded.  There are no “A’s” for effort in the real world.  You will most likely waste a bunch of time and end up “muddling through”.

Translation:  Keep your business and staff focused on your “Core Business” and outsource everything else!

Online Marketing Focus Is Vital For All Companies …Offline Or Online!

Online Marketing is as essential to business success today as Rail and Truck transportation was to early 20th century business.  National distribution systems changed the world.  Today Online business marketing has again changed the world.

Online Marketing channels are still in their infancy, but there are already enough proven metrics to convince major companies to change their marketing models to ensure their survival.  The Fortune 1,000 IS paying attention … and shelling out big bucks to play by the new rules.  This article is a clarion call to ALL small service and product marketing companies!

If you are a small company owner and you still advertise in the “Print Version” of the Yellow Pages, you may be accelerating your financial destruction.  You “YP loyalists” may be loyal to your former reliable and trusted business advertising foundation, but have you done the Yellow Pages ROI (return on investment analysis) math recently.  What is your conversion rate?  What’s your YP generated income to Ad cost Multiple ratio?  Are you even covering the costs of your YP ads?

I am not picking on the Yellow Pages.  This former “Giant” mainstay of most offline business is now a metaphor for any print-based media promotions.  Most people now use phone books as door stops, paperweights, or “booster seats” for their nieces, nephews or grandkids.  Think about your recent activities.  How many times have you pulled out the old YP to find a service or product in the last month.  If you are like most of us, the honest answer is … Not Once!

Yes, there are still throwbacks … computer phobic consumers who hate the “online world”.  But they (and if this is you, I mean no offense at all) are a tiny minority.  In ten years, I would be amazed if there are twenty percent of active consumers who shop the “old way”.   Now ask yourself this question:  “Do you want to spend the majority of your marketing budget on a rapidly shrinking, lower spending portion of your market?”

I know most of you will answer that you want to spend virtually all of your budget learning to leverage … And actually advertising or promoting to the hungriest 80% of your market.  It only makes good business sense.