Are You Promoting Your Online Business Offline Too?

If you are like most business owners you are so busy running the business day to day. If you are promoting your business online it barely leaves you anytime left to think. Between social networking, blogging and SEO on your website you may be leaving yourself no time to do the more important things like customer service or bookkeeping. You may be missing more business because of it. There are ways offline that you can use to promote your online business.

Here are some ways you can promote your online business offline:

Networking: Are you attending any local networking events in your area? Do you know there are also many other online people like yourself doing meet-ups and tweet-ups?

You can find your local tweet-ups here: http://tweetup.meetup.com/ if there is not a group listed or a meeting planned you can start one or get an email alert so when one happens you will know about it. The closet one I found to Rhode Island was listed as the South Shore in Massachusetts with 71 members. I have seen on Twitter peeps doing their own but maybe not posting on the official website. You could also create a Google Alert for Providence Tweet-Up. You may also find Facebook groups that promote local networking events. Reading RISBJ monthly you will find area listings locally.

There are many meet-up groups in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.  You can look at them here at http://www.meetup.com/. There is a group of Kent County moms over 100 strong.  There is a RI Photo Safari Meet-up with 139 photographers. Rhode Island Hiking Club is over 1300 strong. There is a Rhode Island Ron Paul Meet-up with 154 members. The list goes on. In all there are 27 groups in Rhode Island participating at this site. You can start your own meet-up group. You may sign up for email from them and you can see weekly what is coming to your area.

Promotional Products: Tee-Shirts, Hats, Pens, etc.  What better way when you are out and about to have your logo on you as well as on your customers. It will help your brand awareness. People feel better about purchasing on a website if they know the brand.

Trade Shows: Do you know which trade shows are in your area that you or someone at your business could attend? There is a website that provides you all the information you need to participate or attend one in your area.

http://www.biztradeshows.com/ it is similar to the other 2 sites in that you can search for ones in your area or within a certain mile radius.

Business Shows/Expos in Your Niche: These are even better to get to know buyers and your competition. There is a website called Trade Show News Network  where you can search for local ones. Another is called Events in America.  Drawbacks of these events are the cost and time involved to getting set up and being there for a full day or days. If you don’t participate you can go and visit. It will save you time and money. If the shows are in your niche it may be well worth your time and money to be an exhibitor.

Chambers of Commerce: The chambers of commerce are another way to network with other business owners in your area.  There are several in the local area. There are membership fees at each of them but they do provide members with a wealth of information and events to attend and met other businesses.

Traditional Media: Print, TV, Radio are not dead. You can reach your local audience through these traditional marketing methods. Certain times of the year may cost less than others and if you contact a local representative they may be able to find affordable ways for you to utilize these methods. An example of how they still work today is JCPenney. They stopped using traditional methods of marketing and changed their entire message. They ended up losing a lot of sales and are returning to some of the traditional marketing methods now.

Business Cards: Online businesses can have business cards too. You never know who you will meet that person who can use the cards or pass them on. You may want to send them out with orders. You should have a QR code on them so they can easily scan in your website from their smartphone. Keep them simple and be sure to have web address as well as contact info on them easy to read. You will also need with most of the mentioned above ways to promote your online website offline.

Finding the combination that is right for you will take some time, energy and money. Once you do find the right mix for your marketing methods you will know it as sales will climb. The methods you use will more than pay for themselves.

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