Offline marketing is all the buzz now and it’s not surprising. There are a lot of small businesses that don’t really know how to market their businesses effectively online.
Your local drycleaner or cosmetic dentist probably knows less about online marketing than you think. Even if you’re not a computer whiz, it’s likely you know enough to provide a valuable service.
While it can be a competitive field, it’s not that difficult to make some real money quickly.
Here are several ideas that can help you make money as fast as today:
Target smaller businesses. Businesses with 10 or fewer employees are able to make decisions quickly. Larger businesses are more likely to want to hire someone with demonstrated experience and expertise or need to have meetings to reach a conclusion to use your services
Target businesses that are already advertising in some way. You don’t want to have to convince someone about the importance of advertising. You want someone that’s already advertising in some fashion. A few good places to find such businesses are:
The Yellow Pages. Yellow Pages ads are quite expensive. Any business with an actual ad as opposed to just the standard listing is a good candidate.
Groupon. Go to their website and search around. Any company with a Groupon deal is already willing to spend money to advertise.
Val-Pak. These usually come in the mail, but there is also a website you can you use to find prospects. The minimum charge to a company for advertising with Val-Pak is around $1,000. These companies see the value of advertising and are willing to spend money on marketing.
Offer a specific service at first. Become known as the gal that makes YouTube videos or the guy that creates mobile websites. Find something that interests you or that you’re already good at. Consider these services for inspiration:
Make videos of the business and distribute them to online video sharing services.
Create websites or mobile versions of their websites.
Set up a blog for the company. Offer to make weekly posts.
Write press releases and submit them to online press release services.
Manage search engine pay-per-click advertising campaigns.
Design Facebook pages.
Handle their social site marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or similar sites.
Build their list of customers and prospects and send coupons, ads, or newsletters by using an auto responder service like Aweber.
Once you’ve been hired for one service, you can always come back and sell them additional services later.
Contact the businesses offline. Many offline marketers want to find customers online, since a lot of computer people can be a little shy socially. It’s much quicker to approach them directly. These ideas make it easier:
Phone. The phone gets much easier with practice. Have a script and just make those calls. There are plenty of scripts available online. A neat trick is to call when you know the business will be closed and simply leave a message! When someone calls you back, you know they’re pretty serious.
Flyers or pamphlets. Print up some simple flyers or pamphlets. Pass them out to business owners, saying something like, “I’ve started a new business and I’m just getting out in the neighborhood to get the word out.” Give them your flyer.
Direct mail. There are a lot of services, including the U.S. Postal Service, which will print and mail postcards and brochures for you. All you really need is a mailing list.
Combine all of these ideas. Give them a phone call and then a week later, send a postcard. A few days later, stop by with a brochure or flyer. Where most offline marketing wannabes make their mistake is simply giving up too soon. Most people will not hire you on the first contact. It might take five!
Market daily. You’ll generally spend more time marketing than actually ‘working’. Doing the actual work for the clients is the easy part. Set a goal each day for what you want to accomplish.
You’ll find that it takes about an hour to make 20-25 after-hours phone calls when you include the answering machine time. How many phone calls are you going to make each day?
If you go to strip malls, you can hand out a lot of flyers in an hour. Do you know where all of your local strip malls are located? Office parks can be another good location to get a lot done in a hurry.
Strive to send out some mail each day.
Have a spreadsheet to keep track of who you’ve contacted. Make a note of the date and the method. Don’t beat a dead horse – five contacts and then they’re out!
Utilize your friends and family. Posting a notice on your Facebook page might be all you need to find someone that knows of a good client. You might even find a good client among your friends and family.
All your message needs to say is, “Hey everybody, I’m starting an offline marketing business to help small business owners advertise their businesses effectively online. If you know of anyone that needs help in this area, please let me know. Thanks!”
Remember to include the contacts in your phone and email account(s). Send off a message to everyone you know and let them know that you’re in business.
Ask for referrals. Small business owners tend to know other small business owners. Don’t be afraid to ask for referrals when you’re talking to them. This is especially true after you’ve done some work for them.
Expand your business. You can easily take on an unlimited number of clients and add more services if you outsource some of your tasks.
With outsourcing, you could just focus on your marketing and let others do the actual work of the services you’re offering! Find others to do the work at places like fiverr.com and warriorforum.com.
You could even outsource a lot of your marketing. Simply pay a commission that still leaves you in profit for each sale. A lot of work-at-home telemarketers work on commission and could make many contacts for you in a short period of time.
Making $500 or more, quickly, is really quite simple. Get together some basic marketing materials and get them out there to as many suitable people as possible. In a good, solid day, you could make 100 phone calls, pass out 100 flyers, and contact everyone in your phone or email account.
The yellow pages and Val-Pak will keep you busy for a long, long time with a never-ending supply of potential clients.
If you’ll limit your search to smaller companies that are already advertising, you’re halfway home. The only other requirement is to never stop marketing. Hit each potential client five times.
If you stay busy and are aggressive in your efforts, $1,000 each week can be a realistic goal!