Webmaster Corner Forum

Ok, let's talk about offline marketing.
First, what do I mean by offline marketing?
I mean all forms of marketing that are done outside the Internet world. These include word-of-mouth, posters, and radio and TV promotions.

How effective are they?
Let us try to discuss one at a time to see how effective each and everyone is:

- word-of-mouth: It is very limited, I mean how many persons will you meet and talk to directly? But hey, it is free after all and when it works, it should bring quality traffic.

- Posters/stickers: Well they are also limited, but a little bit better that word-of-mouth. The poster and/or sticker should be catchy so that it attracts enough attention, and again when it works it would bring quality traffic.

- TV and radio promotions: They cost a lot (generally speaking), but they get the word out there, they will bring quality traffic also.

Why do these bring quality traffic you say?
Well simply because the visitor who remembered your site (from the offline world) must really be interested to keep it in mind and use it when he/she goes online.

One more very important thing to keep in mind is that offline marketing usually only reachs the local market, so if you are target is worldwide, think twice before investing in offline marketing.

I'd love to be able to do all that but i live in France and have an english speaking forum......so tough luck for me i suppose

Word of mouth is one if the BEST marketing methods you can use.

It all depends on the type of site.

For example,
I'm starting up a music site so I'm going to be making buttons before the summer to hand out at tours and shows. As well as flyers.

Which in turn will start the word of mouth process.

You took the words right out my mouth, "It all depends on the site you have"

Word of mouth offline advertising has worked pretty well for a lot of people. For some sites though, the option of this type advertising does not work well.

I remember reading of someone who tried to advertise their site with flyers locally. The service they were providing was one more for people who were used to working online than something the average internet user would be looking for. It probably could have worked, but they would have had to be in a place where more of their target audience would have been for it to be effective.

Some very popular sites were first based on offline marketing. A lot of these college type joke and video sites were marketed that away at first.

Yeah or goldenpalace.com buys every weird ad opportunity on ebay to get PR about it.

goldenpalace.com they get great press, true but they do have the big bucks to manage all those spots

If you are offering any kind of freelance web development or other web solutions, I think offline marketing is a must.

On the other hand, I don't see much need in promoting a forum offline cause a very small percentage of people you can reach offline appreciate an online community. Your forum activity will require a targeted appeal to people who appreciate forums as a means to converse with others. At least that has been my experience.