It’s easy to assume that marketing is now exclusively online. After all, why bother paying for TV or radio ads when you can reach a much larger audience for a lower price online? It’s true, online marketing has boosted the ability of business owners to gain more interest for less. However, that doesn’t mean that offline marketing tactics are now useless. You can still increase small business sales if you adopt the right marketing tactics. So, let’s look at a few of the possibilities to consider here and the tips you need to take on board.

Use The Press

There are a few ways that you can use the press to your advantage for offline marketing and promotion. The first is to make sure that you do have strong connections with the local press in your area. Make sure that you are operating as a PR professional. Get in touch with local writers and journalists and push them to track or report updates in your business. Remember, journalists, particularly journalists for smaller papers and channels, are always looking for a story. They will welcome you as a source of news and updates, even if it is just to fill a slow news day.

Of course, it’s possible that if you take the right tactic, you can be more than a filler piece in between the main stories. You can get a main page article which will essentially be an ad for your business. We will look at how to do this further down. But for now, make sure that when you do organise events and interesting campaigns, do make sure that you notify the local papers. This could be as simple as sending emails to the sources that you have connected with.

The best thing about this type of promotion is that it is completely free and could be worth more than paid advertisements. This type of marketing content is authentic and will speak to your target audience.

How do you find contacts? Simply check out some of the articles and the types of stories that you would like to see about your business. By doing this, you can then check the bio of the writer for contact details.

Show Some Skin

It’s important to show your customers and potential clients that your business is about more than just making profits. There are numerous ways to do this, but the main idea is that you need to show some skin. You need to prove to them that your business is more. A charity would be the top choice. You can either set up your own charity or donate to a cause. You can also consider attending a charity event and commit yourself and your work team to that cause. Something like a Race for Life would fit well here, sending a positive message to your target audience.

Alternatively, you can think about hosting an event that will benefit the local community. Helping out the local community and using the power behind your business to do it is a great way to get your company the attention it deserves. Is your business on a busy high street or area that the public frequent? If so, get out there, rent some sound equipment and interact with the people passing your store by. You could definitely see an increased level of interest in your business if you do this. It’s a great way to bring people off the street. Do you not have a brick and mortar business address? Offline interactions like this are still a great way to build a buzz around your company. You can also make sure that you have marketing materials with everything from a hashtag to your business website plastered across it.

Bear in mind these types of events and strategies are exactly what you need to do if you want to gain the interest of the press and get those free ads in the newspaper or even on TV.

Use Your Space

You might have a business space that you can use as part of your promotion and marketing. You should not avoid or neglect this possibility because it could be a fantastic opportunity. If you have a space, it’s important to use it as much as you possibly can. You might find one a whole massive building. If that’s the case, consider investing in a wall decal. A wall decal can be a great way to gain attention, increase foot traffic or even simply encourage members of the public to research your business as they get home. Think of the outside of your business exterior as your own private massive billboard because you can use it in exactly the same way. You can even add promotional material to the windows or doorways of your company. This could once again be enough to gain those higher sales.

You should be thinking about the interior of the building as well. The classic example would be a restaurant. If you have a restaurant, you can open it up for events on occasion such as date nights. Close the doors to people booking for meals and open it up to those looking to meet the one. You can see how this type of promotion could build a buzz around your company. Perhaps you choose to set up a full buffet that those attending the event can enjoy with their dates. What you lose in profits for a couple of hours you won’t be accepting reservations you will more than makeup for in level of buzz.

Become A Trusted Authority

This might surprise you, but clients and customers don’t want to buy from an underdog. Instead, they want to make sure they are purchasing from a successful business as well as a trusted individual or group. As such, you have to make sure that they know you are trusted in the industry. Online, you can opt for guest posting on sites to gain this type of brand reputation. But what about offline? Well, the best way to do this would be to attend industry events and volunteer to speak at them. By doing this, you can quickly become an authoritative voice in your chosen industry and gain a higher level of interest from clients or customers.

Don’t forget this is something that you can promote offline and online and there is great potential here. You can mix this with local community activities as well. For instance, you can volunteer to speak at schools and colleges, providing business advice and career information to the next generation.

Use Promotional Items

There is nothing that customers love more than getting something for free. Promotional items are a great example of this. Promotional items can either be sold at your store and company or, you can give them away for free. Let’s say that you invest in a thousand pens with your company name and website printed on them. This means that you can provide these to a thousand customers and they will take them. More than that they’ll use them since pens are a necessity item. As such, you will have materials out in the world that have contact info on for your company. The best part is that it’s another example of how offline marketing can be free. Yes, you will have to pay for the products, but this will seem like an absolute steal once you see how much your sales increase.

Use this advice, and you will soon discover that there is still plenty of value in marketing your business offline.