Garrett Peterson, Negosentro.com | For many companies, virtual marketing has become the only marketing. Is this a sound business approach? If you’re not asking yourself this question, perhaps you should. Offline marketing, which not that long ago was marketing, still packs a punch.
Consider:
- There are over 250 million cars and trucks on the road in the U.S. That’s a lot of potential viewers of billboards and pole banners.
- Millions of buyers attend trade shows every year in the U.S. alone. According to Exhibit Surveys, Inc., the average trade show attendee spends more than eight hours viewing exhibits. The average visit to a company website is measured in minutes, or even seconds.
- Radio reaches more than 50 percent of the U.S. population every day; television reaches more than 75 percent. Social media reach: 45 percent. Radio and TV ads make mathematical sense!
Despite the massive attention devoted to online marketing, the numbers make a strong case for investment in offline marketing, either as a complement to online campaigns or perhaps even as a replacement. One of the major downsides of online marketing is saturation: With so many companies vying for attention on Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube and other high-traffic platforms, it is becoming more difficult every day for a midsized or small company to stand out from the crowd, to have its message heard.
In contrast, small and midsized companies have a more captive audience in offline marketing. An automobile passenger, a radio listener or a TV viewer does not “click off” with the speed and ease of an online website visitor. Trade show visitors touring an exhibit quite often want to talk to a sales representative — unlike the case of website visitors, who often visit the site for the very purpose of avoiding contact with a sales representative.
If you haven’t considered offline marketing, you could be missing a golden opportunity to drive more foot traffic, capture more sales leads, and bring more visitors to your website. Plus — there are probably a lot more types of offline marketing than you’ve considered. Check out this infographic to learn about the top 25 offline techniques:
Author bio: Garrett Peterson, Vice President at Downtown Decorations, has been working with the company since 2003. His father, Ted, established the company as a small holiday décor business. Now, after years of growth, Downtown Decorations is a premier provider of decorative services with a portfolio spanning projects of all sizes around the globe.
