Online Marketing for Offline Business

admin | Aug 18, 2009 | Comments 0

When you’ve spent all your time, your hard work and your energy toward creating a ‘Brick and Mortar‘ business it can be pretty daunting to look at the internet as a means of supporting your business, or even as a ‘Stand Alone‘ business in its own right. One thing is for certain…The Internet is not a’Fad‘ and it’s not going away any time soon. That can either frighten you or get you excited. I’m choosing what’s behind door number two

As we journey together through this informational walk I want to try to give a bit of shape to the direction I see things going, what I would recommend and, hopefully some solutions that will be meaningful to your bottom line.

1. The website as an ‘Online Brochure‘: This is where most online marketing for online business began, and still is to a fair extent. From a production standpoint it makes a lot of sense. There are no printing costs, updates are free and immediate and the reach is worldwide the moment you click ‘submit‘. It’s also environmentally friendly, can be full color, multi-page and even include elements of radio and television that many businesses could never otherwise afford.

2. The website as ‘Lead Generation‘: Internet marketers and direct marketers alike have known the truth behind this one. Whether you’re marketing online or offline, the money is ALWAYS in the list. “Take away my business, but leave me with my customer list, and I’ll rebuild again with no problem.“ I can tell you from experience that is 100% true. There is not a single thing in my business that has outperformed direct marketing to my list, online or offline.

3. The website as ‘Shopping Cart‘: More and more we have seen ’shopping carts show up online. From companies like Sears and Victoria’s Secret to niche markets like Bass Pro Shops, many mass retailers treat the internet as an ‘Online Catalogue‘. Amazon is certainly the 1000 pound gorilla in this category and literally makes it’s mark selling you the stuff you’ve been looking for that everybody else is selling and then taking a piece of the pie. E-bay would be the ‘Online Flea Market’ where the online shopper still looks first for bargins.

4. The website as A Business: This is, without question, the most powerful model of Online Marketing. To create a true system “That Makes Money While You Sleep.“ That’s the dream that’s been passed around, that is for certain. It’s also the most elusive model as it seems that examples 1-3 are the most common ones I see as I encounter offline businesses creating their presence online. Many business have one or more of the first three elements and some have all three, but without A SYSTEM that holds it all together, what often occurs is an expensive time draining solution that sits somewhere around 100,000,000,000,000 in Alexa and shows up on page 973 of Google. The only sale being the one you used to test the shopping cart in the first place.

In future articles we’ll be looking at the various ‘models’ that you can choose for the Online Marketing of your Offline Business too give you an idea of the best fit for you and a strategic plan for implementing it. You may choose to remain in a storefront and use the internet to brand yourself or you may yearn for the ‘Internet Lifestyle’ where you build your business around your life instead of the other way around. Whatever’s right for you I hope to provide you with information to help you achieve your business goals faster and with more success than you thought possible.

It’s Your Move,

Phil Hughes