Internet Marketing, Thinking Outside The Box For Profits!

Internet marketers can sometimes put themselves in a box mentality. This limits them to using normal online marketing techniques. But marketing is marketing, sure the technical aspects like html, domain names, auto responders, etc, are completely different, but the internet is just a delivery medium for your business. People are people with the same emotions, needs and wants, both online and offline.
Dan Kennedy has stated that the most dangerous number in marketing is one. That is if you are just reliant on one marketing medium source like the internet, you may be in trouble. What happens if your CPC (Cost per click) rises dramatically or a campaign gets shut down? Enough with the scare tactics, all I am saying is, what else, or how else can you communicate to the masses?
If you sold sporting equipment online or a sports related e-book, could you put flyers on car windows (Hire a kid to do it.) at a sporting match and get a R.O.I. (Return on investment) If there are two hundred cars in the car park, could any be potential customers? Could you talk to a coach about how your products help the sports team? Is sponsoring an option?
I have seen a small sticker placed underneath the McDonalds drive through window. It just had a powerful headline that caught your attention and the web address. It was placed at eye level for customers in the car, waiting for their order. Now depending on your target market it may not be too targeted. However, if your product is for the person who gets take away food like busy moms or dads, young tradesman, etc. The sticker would probably get removed in a few days, but how much traffic would literally see your sticker? This is a bit sneaky and not recommended, but it is an example of thinking outside the box.
I have also seen a business owner go to his local book store and place business cards in books and magazines, relating to his niche. Now limited in physical numbers agreed and shifty, but could be very highly targeted prospects. Can you get a R.O.I. if you tried postcard marketing? What about a placing a classified ad in the newspaper? How about putting a flyer on the local community board? Putting an advertisement in the neighborhood watch or school newsletter, would that work? If you do article marketing on the net, could you send articles to a physical magazine? I have seen plenty of gurus do this and it is almost automatically given the author expert status with the readers.
If you sell a pet related e-book, like dog training, could you contact the pet store owner and give away a shorter version of your e-book or report like, "Seven crucial points you should know about training your dog!" with every bag of dog food sold? This could be a great lead generation method for your site. In return for the pet store owner, you could make a recommendation in your e-book about his pet shop. To take this one step further on a bigger scale, could you contact the dog food manufacturer and work out a deal?
A yoga teacher offered a shorter version of her yoga video to the newspaper for free to give out with the paper. A deal was worked out for the printing costs. The newspaper sold more papers because it was giving away a free DVD, and the yoga teacher gained instant guru status and clients. Not to mention the thousands of new visitors to her website looking for the complete DVD and other yoga accessories.
Sure some tactics won't give you the numbers, or are too time consuming to use, but the point of the article is to think outside the box. What offline marketing method can you mix with online for maximum results?
Copyright 2009 Craig Howlett

By : Craig Howlett