Online vs. Offline Marketing

[thebassman]

Just curious on people's thoughts for an online company using offline advertising. Is offline advertising best saved for large companies? Have people done any sort of offline advertising for their online company that has worked? I'm on a fairly small budget (and am just starting my company) and am curious on people's advice as far as where to start for advertising and whatnot, and whether my focus should be on SEO and maybe a PPC campaign, or are there better routes to start with?

[EDMS]

This is also something similar I posted on how to target the actual people in the companies you want to attract. I feel you can only get so far online.. You aren't going to hit the people you really want to get to unless you advertise in something not online in my opinion. It's just finding what mediums to use. I'd like to see the responses to this.. Good luck with your new venture. I am also finally set up with the state and such trying to market myself..

Nice slogan by the way.. I like that!

[thebassman]

Thanks about the slogan... my fiancé and I came up with it just a couple weeks ago. A good chunk of my targeted customers are newlyweds, so I've been thinking mildly about advertising specifically to that group of people, however offline advertising is so expensive compaired to online advertising. In addition, I have no "brick & mortor" office... I run my company out of my home, so I'm not sure how effective offlien advertising will be for me.

[MrWirerDA]

Yeah, Nice Slogan!

As far as the marketing is concerned, I think it's best to determine what route to take once you figure out what your target demographic is. Targeted offline market can be a worthy investment, if your material is placed in the right place. Online marketing is much more cost effective, but may limit the amount of people and types of people you are trying to attract.

Check this link to find out if the web demographics can work for you:

http://www.clickz.com/stats/big_picture/demographics/


Either method is saturated, though since the print industry is on the decline, you will probably be more successful in the near future setting up a solid web marketing solution now. Hope I could help.

[thebassman]

Thanks for the advice. I have a pretty good idea as to who my targetted demographics are, it's just a matter of deciding what advertising methods will reach them the most effectively (and cost efficiently!)

[mukul]

Hi,

You cannot build a great online brand without offline advertising. The greatest online brands also market themselves offline simply becuase people dont live on the internet for more then 1/3rd of their time and the rest 2/3 is spent in the real world. However, doing a quick reality check you will realize that as a startup you can only target this 1/3rd of this market.

If your industry is not very compeetive then you can go for PPC engines and try to bid on the lowest end as a startup. SEO cannot be ignored but it is more long term and your efforts will take time to materialize. Till then, PPC will get you revenues. You can also try more direct marketing techniques like emails etc.

Internet Branding is all about getting your name out and you get also do get pretty good via radio.

Anyways Here's a start for cost effective marketing marketing:

List your Web site at search engines and directories
List your Web site at malls and various local pages
Reciprocal links
Ezine advertising swaps
Write articles and submit them to Web sites and ezines
Have a sweepstakes, contest, trivia game, or other online promotion tool at
your site and announce it everywhere
Free classified ads
Join topic-related discussion lists and mailing lists
Use sig files at the end of your email messages
Participate in banner exchanges
Participate in Web rings
Utilize topic-related affiliate programs
Purchase banner ads
Purchase text ads
Buy keywords/adwords on major search engines
Press releases
Radio spots
Local newspaper ads and articles (letter to the editor on some topic, whatever)
Network with your local Chamber of Commerce
Yellow pages ads
Val-Pak coupons or other coupon incentives

Hope I was able to help !

Mukul Gupta
Chief - Marketing
Indus Net Technologies
http://www.script2please.com

[thebassman]

Great ideas! Thanks! Oh, and welcome to the small-business-forum!!

[mukul]

Thanks a lot !