Offline marketing activities are essential to your business growth and should not be ignored. However, it is easy to get caught up in the details of running your business and neglect this essential way to promote your business.
Here are 3 Offline Marketing Activities and suggestions on how to make them a regular part of your business:
1) Networking: Join organized groups, associations, clubs, meetups that get together on a regular basis and attend their meetings and functions. Ideally, your combined memberships should facilitate your attending at least 1 meeting or function per week. Always have your business card on hand and follow up immediately when you receive a new contact. Follow up should take place within the week of meeting a new contact.
2) Speaking Engagements: Speaking to your target audience at industry conferences, seminars and big events is a great way to market your business. To secure speaking engagements, you really need to have your ear to the ground so to speak. So the weekly activity in this case, is actively working to secure speaking engagements. Here are a few tips to get leads about speaking opportunities:
- Rework your elevator speech to include the kind of people you work with, the benefits you provide and the fact that you are also a speaker on related topics to your target niche. Be open and add that you are available to speak at upcoming meetings or events that the person may know of. If the person that you are being introduced to at the networking function does not have a direct lead for a speaking opportunity, he or she may know someone who does.
- Target opportunities for speaking through Industry Associations who host regular events and send them a speaking proposal. You may even have to conduct a follow-up campaign involving letters and phone calls so they keep you top of mind for their upcoming events.
3) Referrals: Constantly ask for referrals. Believe it or not, most people want to be connectors. I know I do. I enjoy meeting someone who needs a service that someone I know and respect provides and putting them in touch with each other. Ask your friends, family, current clients, past clients for referrals. When you just meet someone through networking, offer an extra business card for them to pass along to someone they know who might need your service.
Above all, decide to have fun while you are performing offline marketing activities. It does not have to be thought of as a chore. At the core of these activities is meeting new people which is fun for aspiring and natural social butterflies. Just remember that if you are committed to serious and quick business growth you need to be committed to these offline marketing activities as well.
Thanks for the reminder Don! I use this strategy and it helps to keep me moving through resistance.