Offline marketing is still very effective even as the world moves deeper into the digital age. We online marketers have seen amazing profits borne out of small investments. Unfortunately due to the low threshold caused by low overhead costs of starting an online business competition is fierce.

Taking ones business to the next level will require offline marketing efforts. This level I am talking about is the stratosphere of 6 to 7 figure profits. Television and radio still have the power to bestaw expert level on individuals that have no true claim on such titles let alone your time.

But most people have told me how hard it is to buy into offline advertising because there is no instant feedback seen with using media like Pay Per Click. The website domain names are hard for people to remember.

Lets write down what you need to do to intergrate successfully.

1) A simple domain name with some authority.

www.xyz123.info is commands less authority than www.thesensiblechoice.com.

2) Selecting the best medium based on good demographic research. Don’t you dare take out a newspaper ad about your website targeting teenagers. Learn and ask the people close to you where do they get their daily information.

3) Send them to squeeze page with a prominent and highly visible opt in form. Do not send your offline visitors to a busy website like Yahoo.com expecting them to find that sign up form buried in piles of graphics. I wouldn’t send them to my blog either. Its too busy. You can’t send traffic from Google’s pay per click to a squeeze page but you can offline visitors.

Depending on your advert and your niche you can thank them for subscribing by giving them a one time offer. This offer must be enticing and not too expensive, (about $3 – $47 depending on your niche). Don’t be too agressive as it might scare your expensive subscribers away. Some marketers use this one-time offer to recover advertising costs almost immediately.

4) You need to build an email campaign that has loads of trust building between you and your subscribers (even though the offline advert gave you some) and you need to make offers.

So I hope I made intergrating offline and online marketing less unerving for you.

As always please leave me a comment if this post gives you inspiration. I always look forward to reading and replying to your comments and questions.

The number 1 marketing tool to people that bought from you is customer service, hands down. If you skimp out on that you will never realise upsells, repeat sales or even downsales.

When you are a seller your chief task is to sell. Your second task is to give a legendary customer service experience that will have them singing you to their friends and loved ones. Your third task is to sell them again, hopefully something else.

I have seen people being sold the most absolute nonsense but because of customer service that is great to work with they keep buying. I sometimes want to shout, “Don’t buy that, its crap.” But I keep quiet because I might get lynched.

So dear reader, please go sort out your customer service response times and manner. Test them, get feedback from your customers and improve on some of their constructive suggestions.

So, please comment if you feel inspired and if you want to pick a bone with my customer service (be nice)

Do you know the book called “The Art of War” by Master Sun of the Chinese empire during late BC (700 to 400BC)?

Well the times may have changed but the art remains the same because people’s raw emotions are still unchanged despite millenia. If you tell somebody a hurtful thing they will have a choice of emotions to choose from:

1) Anger

2) Saddness

3) Fear

4) Indefference

Intellectual responses may be vast in range but the underlying feeling categories are severely limited. People cannot control their emotions as they would like to believe. That is why mob mentality and peer pressure still plagues us to this day.

Any good marketer understands these emotional responses and takes his cues from them. The internet has lead to marketing laziness. (Yes I suffer from marketing laziness too.) The selling point has been distorted with the vastly successful long sales page mail marketing and lead to people trusting that a well written sales letter has the power to magically draw money out of the wallet of the surfer.

They have reduced the most important person (the customer) to hits and conversion rates. The life-time value of the customer (which can be substantial) has been neglected for the morning bank balance. 

The art of selling comes in giving an individual an item or service they need or want at a fair price. The art of marketing is determining that need or want and telling the customer about your solution. 

We as marketers have the ability to build unconditional trust with our contacts, turning them into life-long customers and the internet allows us to retain the connection we need as a spieces.

More on selling and marketing later.