First of all let me say that having spent the past 20 years
working closely with small businesses I know exactly what works
when it comes to offline advertising.

What I have found today is that that online businesses have a
built in advantage when it comes to promoting their business 
offline. You already have a website and autoresponder in place 
to lead your prospect to. When you combine that fact along with 
the traditional capture methods of telephone and snail mail 
there is no reason any online business can't use offline methods 
to build their businesses and sell their products and services.

A lot of online based businesses forget about offline 
advertising. I know I have. It is important to combine offline 
and online advertising together in your marketing campaign. This 
will give you a more well rounded approach to promoting as well 
as attract potential prospects and customers you might not
otherwise get.

In all your offline advertising you want to include your web 
site address, e-mail or autoresponder addresses, and your phone 
number and mailing address. This gives you the appearance of a 
real bonafide business.

Another thing is to start selling products for manufacturers 
who offer co-op advertising for promoting their products. You 
can read a little more about this technique in an article I 
wrote titled "Why Are You Wasting Free Advertising Money?"
http://sites-plus.com/articles/article2.html

Finally you need to view offline marketing as a long term
commitment. I've seen businesses over and over run and ad,
not get the response they were looking for and quit.

This will not work offline. Or online for that matter. You need 
to establish a budget and stick to it. That doesn't mean that 
you can't change the ad copy if your response is marginal. It 
just means if you are going to run classified ads for example 
that you run them for a period of time and allow them to do 
their job.


Here are 10 offline marketing ideas. Use as many of these as 
possible to move your business forward.

- Classified Newspaper Ads- Place classified ads in newspapers.
  Local newspapers often have great advertising rates that you 
  can take advantage of to promote your business. Here's a 
  great source for running classified ads. 
  http://www.nationwideadvertising.com

- Put up flyers. They could be in computer stores, libraries,
  restaurants, car windshields, or anywhere you shop that 
  allows flyers.

- Direct mail. A nice direct mail piece when done consistently
  over a period of time can bring tremendous exposure for your 
  business. The biggest benefit of direct mail is it allows you 
  to reach thousands of people at a bulk mail rate. You could 
  not do this if you had to mail each piece individually.

- Buy time on local cable T.V. It is surprisingly affordable 
  and if you commit to a block of advertising you can develop 
  Top Of Mind Awareness. TOMA is being there when they want or 
  need you. If you are an affiliate or in an MLM consider doing 
  group advertising and spreading the cost out over several of 
  you. You can have leads routed into one phone number and 
  divied out to all advertisers or have each ad display a 
  different phone number.

- Pass out your CD-ROM or diskette business cards at special 
  events. It could be at trade shows, seminars, fairs, etc.

- Get 250 free business cards here and leave them everywhere 
  you go. http://www.vistaprint.com

- Hold a free offline class and teach people how to use their 
  computer or how to use the internet. You could have your web 
  site on display as an example.

- Give away promotional items such as free mouse pads. Put your 
  advertising on the mouse pads and give them away at computer 
  or internet events.

- Advertise in card decks. The card deck you advertise in should 
  be targeted toward internet users.


You would also want to target your offline advertising to groups 
of people that will actually be interested in your product or 
service. If you're selling business books, you will want to 
market to business owners.

In conclusion, if you have a business that's only based online 
using offline advertising to make money online is a great idea 
because so many people today go online to get information about 
products and services they are interested in.