Small businesses have been told that old-school traditional marketing methods are extinct. As extinct as dinosaurs. They are things of the past. They don’t work anymore. Old-school methods are too costly. Offline marketing methods take too long to become effective. You HAVE to move to online marketing channels. I’m here to tell you it just isn’t 
true. I’m here to tell you that offline marketing is alive, well and works great for local audiences. Sure, the Internet has opened some new marketing channels for us. They may be less costly, but unless we do it exactly right, they won’t work for us either.
By now, everyone should have heard just about everything conceivably written, podcast or video taped/digitized about online marketing. We’ve been told that it is the be-all, end all of marketing successfully. Experts encourage us to make social media and the Internet our only channels to market and reach ideal prospects. After all… it’s free. Or, so we believe, only to find out that it’s not really that “free”. Maybe “free” isn’t the right term. Perhaps “less expensive” is more accurate as all those free social media options are drying up. Social media platforms found their way to make money through PPC (pay-per-click) advertising and ‘boosting’ the extent of our reach – all for a fee.
Offline Marketing Deserves Another Chance
Offline marketing can be costly – or not. It can help you get the attention of your ideal customers and clients away from all the noise of the Internet. Take the example of sending direct mail campaigns. Mail boxes used to be filled to the brim and overflowing with what became known as ‘junk’ mail. Not so much anymore. Now, email inboxes are full of ‘spam’ and far less of it is getting read.
Take a look at this slideshow full of offline marketing tips from Downtown Decorations Incorporated. Some may not apply to your small business, but others are easily doable by firms of any size. Think about becoming the big fish in the little pond and avoiding all the online competition clamoring for your customers’ attention.
What offline marketing tactics have you tried for your small business? We’d love to hear how they worked – or didn’t work – in the Comments section below.
