10 Untold Traffic Secrets: part 11

10 - Offline Advertising
===================

Have you ever wondered why some of the biggest online businesses spend
huge sums on direct mail, as well as TV, magazine, radio, and newspaper
advertising? Is it because they have money to burn?
No, it’s because mass media ads and direct mail can actually draw
highly targeted visitors – prospects who are ready to buy. Those big
companies with deep pockets use mass media ads to create indelible name
recognition in the public’s mind. After branding their company into our
consciousness, they use direct mail techniques such as postcard mailings to
send offers to hand-picked prospects who are most likely to make a purchase
soon.
It’s strange, but very few online marketers have discovered the
power of direct mail. A handful have learned to use classified advertising –
the distant cousin of expensive mass media advertising. But almost none are
using other forms of offline ads. This can also give you an enormous edge. If
you make your living from affiliate programs and related upsells, you can bet
that your competition isn’t doing any sort of offline advertising.
If you think offline advertising is too expensive, think again. Because
PPC has become so popular, the cost of high quality online advertising is
rising dramatically. It’s common for a PPC campaign in a competitive field to
cost $1 or more per click – sometimes much more. And you don’t even know
if those clicks are coming from real prospects or your competitors’ itchy
fingers.
In fact, today PPC can actually end up costing as much, or more, than direct
mail on a cost per sale basis. So do the math before you write off direct mail.
A mailing of custom color postcards, for example, can definitely cost less than
$3 each to print and mail, and that includes the mailing list.
More importantly, you must think about your projected COST PER SALE when
comparing PPC and direct mail. Clicks may be cheap, but customers may
not. All traffic – whether targeted or not – is made up of people. If these
“clickers” are unlikely to be buyers, you’ll lose money on PPC no matter how
cheap the clicks are.
For highly competitive keywords you can easily end up paying over $3 per
click if you want to be on the first page of Google. If you stop and consider
WHO you’re selling to, the direct mail campaign may be a better
investment. You can target exactly the sort of person you want, with just the right demographics, and tell them to go to your site where you’ll show
them an irresistible offer.
What about classifieds? With classified print advertising, you can
advertise your URL in literally hundreds of small daily newspapers
for ridiculously small amounts per ad. And classified ads in major
national niche magazines can be very affordable – and usually pull extremely
well.
These days, television ads may not even be out of your reach. If you
enjoy the spotlight, you can purchase "leased access" time on local U.S. cable
television. By Federal Law, every local cable station must allow the general
public to purchase time on their channel, in blocks of 30 minutes. Since the
costs are also controlled by law, even in large metropolitan areas a 30-
minute segment may cost as little as $200.
These days, $200 won’t buy you much PPC in a competitive field like
mortgages or debt management. You don’t even have to be selling to a local
market to make a television segment pay. As long as you’ve got an easy-to-
remember URL, put a special television offer page on your site. Then offer a
high value upsell free to the first 20 people who respond to the “TV special.”
Finally, don’t forget other incredibly simple offline methods of getting your
URL out there. Instead of a traditional business card, print several thousand
with your URL in huge letters and leave them anywhere relevant. Don’t forget
pencils and pens, letter openers and coasters, calendars and T-shirts…
Remember, you don’t need a bricks and mortar location to use offline
advertising. Amazon, Gateway, Dell, AOL, and many other online
businesses spend millions on offline promotional methods. That’s what’s
made their brands and URLs famous.
You can do the same on a much smaller scale. It’s a big offline world. Plenty
of people spend more time offline and on. Open your mind to using offline
marketing to get your message in front of the RIGHT people. That way you
can get your URL in front of targeted prospects. And when they visit
your site, they’ve actually made a conscious decision to do so.