101 Ways To Promote Your Business For Maximum Profits
Introduction: In February 2006, John Ritskowitz hosted a teleseminar with Michel Fortin, David Garfinkel, Yanik Silver, and JP Maroney. Entitled “Million Dollar Roundtable,” it was a chance for these marketing pros to share some of their best secrets for marketing offline, which is something more online Marketers should be doing. Ideally we should all be marketing both offline and online.
Well these folks delivered the goods, and while the call lasted about 2 hours, it still wasn’t enough time to get to everything (it never is, right?). So John compiled some of the ideas they talked about on the call, plus lots more ideas to cover the offline marketing spectrum.
Some of these ideas are more traditional, such as yellow pages advertising and classified ads. Of course that doesn’t mean they should be neglected.
Other ideas are traditional, but not used as much, or I should say not always used as effectively as they could. Direct response marketing and publicity are two that come to mind.
And then there are really creative ideas that are often overlooked, such as valuable joint ventures and strategic alliances. Some of these ideas have the potential to really deliver a lot of leads and sales with minimal traditional “work.”
You’ll find these ideas start out somewhat simplistically and gradually get more creative and complex. So dig in and start thinking about how you could apply these ideas to your business today!
Part I – Traditional Offline Marketing
Don’t think of these methods as too simple or mundane. They are very effective when done right and combined with other techniques in this report.
1) Classified Ads – This is something everyone should be testing in some form or another. It’s great for lead generations. You should still have a strong benefit-driven headline and a clear call to action. Free reports work very well with classifieds. My local paper, the Hartford Courant even has an ongoing deal of 3 lines for 3 days – for free! Even adding more lines only ends up costing a few bucks. With a price like that, there’s no reason anyone with a website should not be testing ways to draw traffic to the site with classifieds.
2) Direct Mail – Nothing beats direct response when it comes to results-driven proven advertising. And messages sent directly to your highly targeted market via direct mail can deliver a terrific return on investment (ROI) when tested properly. There’s a wealth of information on direct marketing by Michel Fortin, David Garfinkel, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, and many more experts. Here are some sites where you can learn more:
http://www.successdoctor.com – Michel Fortin’s main site
http://www.world-copywriting-institute.com – David Garfinkel’s site
http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com – Home of the Gary Halbert Letter
http://www.dankennedy.com – Dan Kennedy’s site
http://www.srds.com – The Standard Rate & Data (SRDS) List Book, a great resource to locate mailing lists of nearly any type you can imagine. You can also find it in some larger city libraries.
http://www.referenceusa.com – Reference USA is a great place to get compiled lists by industry, SIC, demographics and more. It contains names, addresses and lots of other great information on more than 12 million U.S. businesses, 102 million U.S. residents, 683,000 U.S. health care providers, 1 million Canadian businesses, and 11 million Canadian residents.
http://www.usps.com – The US Postal Service website has a variety of tools and educational materials about direct mail as well.
3) Postcards – Yes, postcards are a form of direct mail, but it warrants its own category. Postcards are cheaper to produce and mail than full-blown direct mail packages or sales letters, and they are great for generating leads. Like classified ads, a free report or free gift often works well here. Postcards are also a great way to stay in touch with your customers and prospects, and they also work well as part of a sequence of mailings. A good place to go for customized postcards is http://www.usps.com (the US Postal Service website), because the USPS has partnered with a company that will print and mail your postcards for you! Best of all, you only pay for the postage (i.e. FREE printing costs). Hint: be sure to include yourself on the mailing list so you can get your own mailing as well.
4) Yellow Pages – Another great resource that is often underutilized or used ineffectively. Yellow page ads are great because when someone sees your ad, they are already in the market for your product or service. Yellow page ads need to be benefits-driven, with your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) stated clearly and boldly (remember, this is the one place where your prospects will see your ad alongside all of your competitors). You want your ad to stand out from the clutter. Use a direct response type of ad, and again, free gifts or premiums work well here.
Gary Halbert has written about yellow pages several times in his newsletter. To find them easily, just enter the following search at Google:
site:thegaryhalbertletter.com +”yellow page”
5) Space Ads – If you’re going to do a space ad, it will generally get better results if you use the same layout as the editorials. Use the same font styles and sizes for the headline, body, etc. If the newspaper uses 2 columns per article on the page your ad will appear, use 2 columns in your ad. If they use 3 columns, you use 3. The “advertorial” approach almost always does better than traditional space ads that scream “ad.”
A great way to get very low costs space ads is to use what’s known as remnant, or standby advertising. Enter the following search in Google to see what I mean and to learn more:
site:thegaryhalbertletter.com +”Nancy Jones”
And you’ll learn to experiment in many creative ways to find out what works for you. A local advertising paper, the Rare Reminder here in the Hartford area, has classified ads and space ads. But I noticed that one “stone and mulch” company has their space ad featured upside-down in every weekly issue. At first I thought it was a mistake. But after seeing it upside-down week after week, I suspected they found that their upside-down ad stands out from the clutter. People think it’s a mistake and read it. Yes, it’s a gimmick. Would I do it? Only if it tested positively. And maybe it has for these folks. Food for thought.
6) Radio/TV/Infomercials – You might be surprised how inexpensive you can get these types of slots, especially if you use remnant advertising. Study the best infomercials, for example (the ones you see over and over again…they must be working or they wouldn’t keep airing them), to get some ideas on how they are constructed.
7) Flyers – Who says you can’t hire a high school student to stuff mailboxes or stick ‘em under windshields? Obviously if you are selling a high-priced financial course, it would be better to target the windshields of a fancy hotel than your local Wal-Mart. And I believe the US Postal Service also prints them for you like they do postcards if you want to mail them. Check out http://www.usps.com
8) Networking – Your local Chamber of Commerce, trade shows, seminars, and anywhere your prospects hang out are all good opportunities for networking. In many cases, the hotel bar the night before the seminar is the best opportunity for making contacts. It’s usually more effective to try to capture contacts and leads than to try to close a sale on the spot, so get your elevator speech ready and have plenty of business cards on hand.
9) Telemarketing – Remember the “Do Not Call” list only applies to consumers, so if you do any kind of business to business selling, telemarketing is a viable marketing method you can use effectively. Also, the “Do Not Call” list may not apply to you with your customers or if you already have a relationship with your prospects.
10) A Trade Show Booth – A great place to capture leads. Again, a free report or gift does wonders. When you get a long line waiting at your booth, many people will stop by just to see what the fuss is about. Make your sales materials and sales people benefit-driven. Remember what your prospects are thinking: “What’s in it for me?”
11) Blimps, Banners, and Billboards – If it’s zoned for advertising and it’s blank, you have an opportunity.
12) Door Hangers – Those same high school students can help you with door hangers as well.
13) Circulars – Again, high school students can also help you hand out circulars, post them on community bulletin boards, on telephone poles, wherever. You can make a donation to your local church and ask them if you can leave a stack at their next bake sale or bingo event. And certainly you can arrange to have your circular included in your local newspaper or community paper. For your money, circulars are very inexpensive to print and distribute.
14) Card Decks – These stacks of index cards are mailed to targeted audiences. Each deck can contain anywhere from 50 to 200 cards or so, each with an advertisement or coupon. They may also double as a business reply card on back. Since your ad is mixed in with tons of others, it’s especially important to have a great headline and layout that will stand out from the clutter.
Card decks are inexpensive because all of the advertisers are sharing the cost of the mailing. They can cost as little as three cents a prospect for large mailings. Even for smaller mailings, they are generally cheap, which is good for testing.
Make sure you choose your audience wisely. Card decks are great for targeting a niche. Free reports or books work especially well here, because the person flipping through the cards will be attracted to the word “FREE.” As always, make sure there is a clear call to action. Multiple methods of response usually work better than a single method. For example, they can drop the card in the mail, call a free recorded message, go to your website, etc. And you may have some options with remnant space, so always try to negotiate a lower price (how hard is it for them to stick another card in their mailing…their costs are incremental and their profit is high even on remnant rates).
A couple other tips: When you see repeat advertisers in a deck, you have a pretty good idea that the deck is working for that ad. If that ad also targets your niche market, it may be a good one to test in. Also, test with copy that you already know works.
15) Value-Paks – Similar to card decks, “value-paks” are little booklets with multiple ads. They are mostly used with coupons, rather than business reply cards.
16) Ad Magazines – You’ve seen them. Magazines that are little more than a collection of space ads. They are usually local, and the ads in them usually aren’t direct response. By putting your direct response ad there, you stand out over all the other ads. But the downside is that these magazines tend to be less niche-focused (although there are certainly exceptions, with the real estate and automobile-themed magazines and newspapers).
17) Catalogues – Your catalog doesn’t have to look like L.L. Bean or the like to be effective. A good one to study with respect to the ads themselves is the J. Peterman catalogue (check out http://www.jpeterman.com).
Here’s a good way to start small and work up from there in developing a good catalogue:
a) Try a simple double-sided flyer first and test response.
b) Make sure you locate highly targeted lists, as the wasted cost of mailings is going to be your biggest expense.
c) Continue to expand, test, and tweak. Test everything—your layout, your copy, your prices—until you find the best combination.
Part II – Creative Offline Marketing
18) Package Inserts – If you’re going to mail out a product or package to a customer anyway, always tuck a sales letter for another product in the package. It won’t cost you any more, and when your customer receives that package, he or she will be pleased with the product (assuming your product isn’t junk) and be more favorable towards another purchase from you. You can also joint venture with other companies that target your niche market and get them to include your insert when shipping their product.
19) Mini-seminars – A great way to bundle up all of your products and services and sell them from the platform. It’s very inexpensive to rent a hall and put on a 2 hour presentation for your target market on something that interests them. You position yourself as the expert, and you get to pitch your products and services. Be sure to record the event and offer it to other prospects who may not be able to attend the presentation in person.
JP Maroney (http://www.jpmaroney.com) did this for a shoestring cost and raked in six figures as a result. Michel Fortin (http://www.successdoctor.com) has done this also, repeatedly, and to my knowledge has never failed to make money. Look at the model of the Big Seminar (http://www.bigseminar.com). Speakers don’t get paid, but still make money by pitching their products. It works, and anyone who doesn’t have one or more of these planned is missing out of a lot of extra potential income.
20) Teleseminars – Basically a conference call, we’ve all probably been on many of them. Some have organized them and have been speakers. They can be pure content (i.e. no obvious pitches) for strengthening social proof and building up anticipation for a new product to be released in the future. They can be a mixture of content and pitch. You can even arrange a series of them as a tele-course and charge big money to attend (Marc Goldman and Jay Abraham did this with a six-month long series, one per month, on joint ventures and deal making).
21) Voice Broadcasts – A very under-utilized technique. If you have an existing relationship with your customers or prospects, the Do Not Call list does not apply. That sets the stage for a great way to call thousands of your customers simultaneously when they are most likely to be away from home. You simply upload your customer’s phone numbers, record the message you want to leave, and the technology does the rest.
Example: “Hi, this is John Smith. Sorry I missed you, but I wanted to let you know that our firesale is ending tomorrow…”
Voice broadcasts work best when they are part of a sequence.
Example: “Hi, this is John Smith calling, from Smith Publishing. I’m sorry that I missed you, but I wanted to let you know about a valuable letter and free gift we’re sending to your home. You should be getting it in the next day or two. Just look for the bright blue envelope…”
22) Gift Certificates – It’s generally known that people will usually spend more than the gift certificate amount. So if you operate a jewelry store, and you mail your customers a free no-obligation $25 gift certificate, it’s usually a very sound investment. Most restaurant owners already know that people generally don’t dine alone, so by giving your customers a free gift certificate, they’re bound to bring in others who will spend more money on food and drinks. A good variation on this formula is the free birthday dinner. Generally, nobody is going to come in on their birthday and eat their free dinner by themselves. They’re going to bring friends, relatives, you get the idea.
Here’s a great way to use gift certificates to get referrals: Send a letter to your customers with three gift certificates. One they can use for themselves, and the other two they can give away to friends or relatives. They keep your customers happy (and happy customers are more likely to speak highly of you to others) and they compound that fact by letting your customers give the certificates to others, to whom they will sing your praises. It’s like a tell-a-friend script on steroids!
23) Coupons – Like gift certificates, coupons are also a great way to “touch” your customers and bring them back into your store (or website or whatever).
24) Contests – The sandwich chain Subway recently had a scratch-off contest, but you had to go online to see if you were a winner. Contests are a great way to get leads and generate sales. Here’s a tip: always include an unadvertised “second place” that everyone who didn’t win will get. Joe Vitale did that last year, and used an email and voice broadcast to announce your “second place” prize. I would have included a sequence of direct mail as well, but the premise is the same.
Also, the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest is a great example of using their product in the contest itself. If your product or service lends itself well to this approach, consider testing it.
25) Celebrity Endorsements – They aren’t as expensive as you might think (unless you try to get Sean Connery or Tom Cruise). The key is that you need to use celebrities that your target market recognizes as such. So Tony Rice would make a great celebrity for bluegrass and acoustic guitar enthusiasts. Not so much for gardening fans.
26) CD Salesletter – People generally won’t read 90 minutes worth of copy, but they will listen to it. The perceived value is much higher than a traditional salesletter as well. They can listen to it in their cars, on their walkmans (although today everyone has an iPod…why not use a podcast instead?). The point is that you can cram in a lot more information. You can do testimonials in their own voices, have sound effects or music. Anything to help advance the sale.
27) Thank You Letters – Whether you send gift certificates, coupons, a 2 for 1 special, a free gift, or just a friendly thank you letter to stay on your customer’s radar screen, these types of letters are memorable and encourage your customers to send you referrals. As always, these types of letters should be personalized, and never use a mailing address letter on the envelope.
Example:
Dear Mr. Smith,
I hope you are very pleased with your recent purchase of my quality artwork. May it bring much viewing pleasure for you and your family for years to come.
Being an independent artist, I truly appreciate your business! I really want to personally thank you!
You should know that a recent painting I did was auctioned locally for more than $10,000.00! My work is featured at local art shows, and my original Silent Tempest painting has been on display in the Wadsworth Atheneum In Hartford since 1998. That means if you hold onto your painting, you’ll likely see its value increase considerably.
As you may know, I also paint custom portraits, landscapes, abstract art, and
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