Get your online and offline marketing working together

Most businesses spend a large percentage of their profits on promoting their business online and offline to their customers. However, many of these businesses are missing out on the full benefit of their marketing activities because they are not integrating the offline activities with their online presence.

Integration is very important because you will be missing out on many potential customers if the online and offline aren’t working together. For example, if a prospect comes across an advertisement for your business without your website address in it, they won’t be able to access further information and will go to another business.

Also, customers can become very confused if there is not obvious relationship between what they see on your website and what is in your brochures or newspaper ads. To ensure you are getting the most value for money out of all your marketing, follow the tips below to get your online and offline marketing working together.

There are several really easy ways to integrate online and offline marketing of your business:

• Match the look and feel
  Your website and online marketing needs to look similar to your offline branding. If your emails don’t look the same as your brochures or you use a different logo on your website to the one you use in your newspaper ads, people won’t recognise your brand and you will lose customers. So make sure your corporate colours and your logo are consistent throughout all your marketing.
   
• Use the same slogans and messages
  Any catch phrases or messages that you include in one of your marketing activities should be carried over into all of them. Your main business slogan should appear on every piece of marketing material that you create, and messages from particular offline campaigns should appear on your website. The best way to get people to remember you brand and become your customers is consistency, so make sure you use the same messages in all your marketing.
   
• Put your website address on everything
  This is by far the easiest way to integrate your online and offline marketing, and it is usually the most overlooked. Your website address needs to appear on absolutely everything – there is no point having one if you aren’t telling people about it. Put it on your business cards, letterheads, invoices, brochures, uniforms, outdoor and car signage and in every single advertisement you create. This will increase your website traffic and your sales leads.
   
• Use the keywords that appear in your offline ads
  Everyone in business is talking about keywords, because they have become one of the most important factors in marketing campaigns. To get your online and offline activities working together, you need to use the keywords from your offline ads in your website or bid for them on search engines. This will ensure that people who see your ad and then search for something they read in it will be directed to your site.
   
• Link landing pages to your ads
  For your advertising campaigns to be successful, they must have landing pages on your website. To fully integrate your offline and online marketing, any campaigns that you run must be linked to a landing page. So if a prospect sees your newspaper ad with a particular offer, they can type in the URL in the ad and be taken to a page that is all about the offer they saw in the ad. Your offer will generate far more leads and sales if it links to an effective landing page.  Learn about the Bloomtools Landing Page Manager

Successful marketing is all about consistency, so take these steps to get your online and offline marketing working together. These strategies will give you a stronger brand and more leads and sales from your marketing.