Marketing Your Online Business in the "Real World"

Customers exist outside of cyberspace.

That one statement might not mean much -- if anything - to you until you actually try promoting your business in the 'real world'. I know it didn't mean anything to me; for years I repeatedly heard 'experts' say that the one thing online marketers neglected most was the offline market.

It wasn't until I opened up a new website where most of the audience preferred good old postal mail that I had my first taste of offline marketing. This short report will outline some of the pros and cons of offline marketing vs. internet marketing, as well as provide a few tips and resources for more information.

The Challenges of Online Marketing

Internet marketing has the advantage of being cheap when compared to offline marketing, but it's by no means perfect. Some of the problems include:

Email marketing, one of the most prevalent and popular ways to market online, is getting harder and harder every day.

In the "good old days" when the internet was still shiny and new, it wasn't uncommon to get response rates of 5-10% or even higher from an email campaign. These days, they tend to be much lower (1-2% if you're both good and lucky) - and much of that has to do with the growing spam problem. Filters throw your messages into the trash if they so much as think you're spam. The messages that do get through may get ignored or inadvertantly deleted, since people are so overwhelmed with junk email that they can't be bothered. It's getting much more difficult to make sure legitimate messages are actually seen, let alone read, by the intended recipient.

Anyone can put up a web page.

There's no easy way to differentiate legitimate businesses from the 'scammers'. Domain names and web hosting are relatively cheap… and people are rightly becoming more cautious about who they're actually dealing with online.

It's difficult to get the right people to see your website.

With billions upon billions of web pages, it's hard to attract people to your little corner of the web - and then keep them there. Another website is just a 'click' away!

Some people are still cautious about making purchases online.

Certain groups of people may be accustomed to buying online, but many others are still uncomfortable buying over the internet (this is gradually changing). Internet fraud is always a hot topic and can scare people away from making purchases online.

These problems, coupled with the ever-changing nature of the Internet, means that it's to your advantage to at least try marketing to your audience offline. Many people still prefer to be contacted the 'old-fashioned' way!

NEXT: Opportunities Available With Offline Marketing

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