Optimize Online First
Then Go Off! Literally
Website success is a complex art and science, as regular readers of our reports
know all too well. To ensure that you get the kind of traffic, attention, ratings,
and commercial results you want you need to invest in and manage a wide array
of different strategies and tactics.
Something many even seemingly savvy Internet entrepreneurs don’t even think
about is the huge opportunity out there to leverage all the traditional media that
has always been used for marketing and advertising.
All the Old Marketing Ways Work for the Web Too
Consider it. Forget about banners and links and search engines for a second.
Is your Website a marketing tool or a destination in itself? In most cases the
answer is both. So if you think of your Website as your online “storefront,”
which it may very well be literally, think for a minute of all the ways businesses
have always advertised and marketed themselves, before the Internet even came
along:
• Print ads
• TV
• Radio
• Inserts
• Magazine and newspaper articles
• Classifieds
• Direct mail
• Direct response
• Local “distribution” channels
In this report we’ll explore each of these, and how you can use them right now to
improve the performance and results for your online business.
Before we go “back to the future” of advertising and marketing, first you want to
be sure you optimize your site itself.
Then you want to optimize your so-called “offsite” strategies, the combination of
links, ads, banners, possibly articles, other content and shared space that
‘extends’ your online presence beyond your site.
We’ll only touch on these briefly, but before you head offline, take a quick check
to make sure you’ve got your online basics lined up first:
On-site Optimization Review
While this report is primarily about not only offsite but offline marketing of your
Web properties, we believe strongly that offline methods will do you very little
good if your “house is not in order” online first.
First review what you need to do on your own site.
• Is all of your content up to date?
• Do all of your internal and outgoing links work?
• If you have an e-commerce function is it working fully?
• If you had planned to do content or Search Engine Optimization, have you done it?
Good. We assume so. Now think for a minute about your online, but offsite
avenues.
Off-Site Optimization Review
With your own site up to snuff, you
still need to be sure that…
• Your ad campaigns, banner placements and other clickable distributions
are working, point to good pages, and so forth…
• Have you arranged for the link placements you planned for?
• Do all of your incoming/referrer links work?
• If you are using an RSS or other syndication strategy, is it functioning
fully?
Getting Started the “Old-Fashioned” Way
Whether the Web is more analogous to TV or reading, or to store experience or a
catalog experience, are interesting questions – for another time.
For now, we assume that your optimized sites need only one thing – which is
more people coming to them, to do whatever it is your site wants them to do
(buy something, read something, register for something, provide some
information, whatever it is).
Regardless of what your exact Web business strategy might be, the old methods
of marketing will all offer you some benefits in terms of driving traffic to your
pages. Let’s take a look at each one and how it might apply to your own
online/offline marketing needs!
A Paperless World. Ha! Not now. Not likely.
When computers became ubiquitous and people started communicating more
frequently with email than with any combination of live meetings, telephone
conversations or the now (truly) lost art of the written letter, many
prognosticators, influenced by environmentalists, declared there would soon be
“paperless” offices and indeed, a paperless world.
In fact, of course, the emergence of technology, if anything, has increased the
amount of paper that flies around, both in the office and in the consumer world.
There are more books published, more magazines printed, et cetera, by a massive
amount than there were in 1980. And we think office filing cabinets are getting
bigger, not smaller, even if a lot of that stuff is also being scanned into databases.
While the newspaper companies themselves may be worried about becoming
irrelevant, that has to do with their timing and the freshness and completeness of
their information, not the fact that the information is distributed on pieces of
inky paper – which still are more functionally reliable than most technology (and
certainly easier to carry into the executive john). Newspapers are fundamentally not going anywhere.
What the continuing ubiquity of print publications means to the Internet
entrepreneur is that all of the available print outlets for branding, marketing, and
advertising are still readily available, somewhat comparatively cheaper than they
used to be, and can be used very effectively to supplement and in some cases
perhaps replace parts of, any online marketing strategy.
The most traditional advertisement of all, is the print ad. It is alive and well in
2006.
Print Ads Worked Then, And Now
By “print ad” we mean two things:
Let’s take a quick look at how you can drive Web traffic with a print ad or
classified, who is likely to see them, and what kind of businesses will benefit the
most.
How Magazine and Newspaper Ads Work, How to Buy, How to Use
Even if you have been buying online ad placements for a long time, the offline
world of advertising can be daunting and confusing, but unless you are
competing for space on the inside back cover of the Fortune 500 issue or the Super
Bowl commemorative edition of Sports Illustrated it’s not that scary.
The magazines – all but the most exclusive/prominent ones – will be happy to
hear from you, and you don’t need outside help like an agency to get started
placing print ads.
There are hundreds – possibly thousands – of magazines published in the US
alone, and many more hundreds published around the world. How to choose
where to put your ad?
• Demographic relevance. If you are appealing to a special audience, go
where they go. If you are appealing to a general audience, do the same.
• Region – local, regional, national, international, industry specific. Again,
this is a demographic question but also one relating to your business. If
you’re selling products on CD or books a global reach may make sense. If
your Website is promoting in-person consulting or home improvement
services or a dental practice, you may only work in a limited geography,
etc.
• Price. You probably have a budget in mind, or you will. Print ad prices
vary widely, from small fortunes for color pages in national magazines to
almost nothing for classifieds in local papers. Do a little research and see
what your preferred budget will buy in the markets you want to reach.
Magazines and newspapers make their money from a combination of ad sales,
subscriptions and retail sales.
But they don’t all make them the same way. First, realize that there are three
kinds of magazines. We don’t mean by content type, we mean by business
model.
Subscription Revenue + Ads
One kind makes money mostly from its own subscription and newsstand sales, and supplements this from advertising. Academic journals with a business bent
like Harvard Business Review would be in this group, as would certain high-end
collector magazines on watches, cars, and yachts and some magazines like Forbes
which charges around $80-100 per year for a typical subscription.
Ads + Subscription Revenue
Another kind makes money almost completely from ads but also profits to some
degree from subscriptions and newsstand sales, which would be almost anything
you would see in a typical consumer newsstand, supermarket checkout line,
dentists office or hotel gift shop like Time, Newsweek, People, Us, Rolling Stone,
Vogue and most general-interest magazines and all fashion rags.
others. Also many prominent executive-oriented magazines like CIO have both a pricey subscription base and a command subscription base.
What makes “command subscription” magazines different is that few of their
subscribers pay to get the magazine, but are a very valuable audience.
The subscribers are highly targeted and highly qualified as being relevant to the
subject matter of the magazine. Which of course means the entire subscriber list
is very valuable from a direct marketing standpoint. So these magazines make
their money from a combination of ad space sales, and, especially, from renting
their subscriber list for direct mail.(More about direct mail below)
Understanding these three types of magazines is just as important as
understanding how to align what you’re selling subject-matter wise to the likely audience of a given magazine.
Clearly if you sell underwater basket-weaving equipment, Underwater Basket
World is probably a more attractive placement than US News since it’s a good bet
almost everyone reading the former would be interested, and virtually no-one
reading the latter, even though with a tiny circulation the price may be
comparable.
Buying Ads
Buying ads, for most businesses in most situations, is very easy, since magazines
and newspapers want to sell them!
Pick up any magazine you might be interested in buying ads in, and look inside
the first few pages. You will come across a “masthead” or a listing of the
executives and publishers of the magazine and the company that publishes it and
other information, which is all required by law in the United States. Nine times
out of ten, this page will have names and phone numbers of the exact people you
need to call to place ads.
Unlike content submissions (which we cover a little later) people will be very
happy to take your call.
Agencies: Yes or No?
You can use agencies. We sometimes do. You can use them both help design the
ads and to place them. There are plusses and minuses to doing this, and if you
have any in-house writing and design skills, and your initial ad placements are
simple designs (or classifieds) and are fairly inexpensive, you can try without them.
If you are competing for high-profile space in major publications agencies can
help because they have relationships with the publishing companies.
On the other hand if you are buying quarter-page classifieds in a trade
publication, whether it appears on page 62 or 64 may well not matter to you.
Where EXACTLY Do I Want The Ads To Run?
The complexity of choosing print ad space is really a book-length subject unto
itself, but here are some basic ideas:
• Choose magazines likely to have a lot of readers interested in your ad.
You probably think in terms of demographics to some degree in your
online marketing and this is more important offline. Bear in mind also that
if you sell a controversial products – such as adult materials or drugs –
magazines are not obligated to accept your ad, so think in terms of the
cultural fit with the publisher as well as that with the audience. You can
buy hydroponics from the back of Rolling Stone but not Fortune.
• Consider whether national, regional, or specialty distribution of your ad
makes the most the sense and spend the least possible to reach the biggest
audience.
• Always run print ads for a period of time (not once) before deciding if its
working for you.
• We can’t give you advice on how to make great print ads, but we can say
make the URL prominent in all of them. Include a phone number if you
want to accept calls, but make the Web page easy to see, find, and key in
for interested parties.
• Create a special URL or Web page that you use in the print ads. This is a
very inexpensive and very effective method of tracking the traffic being
What about Newspapers?
Newspaper ads (not classified but column or page ads) used to be different
primarily in that newsprint was black and white. This is not true any longer, as
there are color ads throughout almost every daily newspaper in the USA today
(starting with, USA Today!).
The main difference remaining is that the impression duration and frequency is very different.
Every week in The New York Times are prominent ads for sales at stores like
Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, yet the magazine ads they run in New York Magazine
never discuss sales, but product lines.
The reason is probably obvious since sales may only last a day or two, and you
can use newsprint ads versus magazines the same way. Newsprint ads will each
be seen one time, with a short window, and benefit from a short term call to action, like a limited special offer.
Magazine ads will be seen multiple times in most cases, and have greater “pass
along” readership (the main reader gives the publication to a friend, colleague or
spouse to read), so you may want to advertise more “stable” concepts, like a
permanent introductory offer or trial, there.
Newspaper ads are generally cheaper, but you have to buy more of them – run
the ad for a week or two every day. Newspapers also generally have much less
demographic control. The New York Post is probably read by equal numbers of
factory workers, Wall Street big shots, and hobos.
It all depends on who you’re trying to reach!
Classifieds
Classified ads are by far the cheapest form of print advertising, and they are used
not only by businesses but by the sublime (such as personals, people giving
away puppies, and people looking for lost friends) to the ridiculous (such as
escort services and questionable massage parlors).
Classifieds are not always text only, they can include images, and they can also
be in color. The main difference between regular print ads and classifieds is that
print ads appear throughout a publication and classifieds appear only in a
special advertising section and in select categories of that section.
Classifieds can however offer tremendous bang for the buck for certain online
businesses, because:
• Classified pricing is based largely on length of the ad, which for a Web
business could be a few words and the URL, keeping it cheap
• Classified ads are just what they are called – classified – so the only people
likely to read your ads are those likely to be interested in the general
subject (assuming you put the ads in the right categories)
To find out about classified pricing, look at the beginning of the classified section
of the publications that interest you. There will almost always be a very straight-
forward price list, how you have to submit the ad, forms of payment accepted,
and the deadline for publication by a certain time.
For example, the largest classified section in most newspapers is on Sundays, and
the deadline will usually be Wednesday for the following Sunday. Classified hints:
• Be creative in thinking about who is likely to be interested in your product
or service. If it’s about making money, you might put an ad in the help
wanted section somewhere as well as others, for example.
• If you place multiple classifieds in the same paper, be sure to track which
one(s) are working, either with distinct URLs or some other method.
• Carefully review each ad the first time it runs. Papers often make typos,
and if they do, they will usually credit you another ad for free.
For a lot of businesses, running a classified ad more or less forever is a very good
investment in a “passive” revenue stream. Take a look in the same area of the
same paper for a few days or weeks – you’ll see a few of the same ads over and
over and over.
In addition to all of the local and some regional newspapers (for some
businesses, national newspapers as well) we’d suggest taking a good look at the
“independent” and usually free “guide” style newspapers like the [City Name
Here] Phoenix and the Advocate. The classified listings in these papers often can
include color graphics and the distribution is enormous, often on every corner
and in every train station and movie theater in some cities. A great option if your
business is local and geared towards individual buyers.
In addition to ads, there are a couple of other ways to drive traffic to your
Websites in print. Primary among these are inserts and articles. Inserts and Articles: Ads in Disguise
Anyone who has ever had a Sunday paper knows all about inserts – it’s all that
“stuff” that falls out in your lap, with the fliers from all the local markets, usually
some kind of magazine, a bunch of ads, coupon packets and so forth.
Inserts
These inserts are available for sale the same way that ads are, though they are
much more expensive to place and also you will require outside help to produce
them.
Inserts are expensive, annoying, and will be ignored by most recipients.
For some businesses seasonal inserts are the best thing going though. We know
of one lawn chemicals business owner who does two inserts per year for his
spring and fall services.
The insert is disguised as informational material about lawn health, but with a
prominent discussion about his services on the other side, and a very easy to find
phone number, Web site, and offer of a FREE consultation.
Since 1974 these inserts have generated almost all of his considerable business,
along with a little word of mouth. With the advent of the Internet, he added a
site and put the URL on the insert and his cards and flyers (we’ll come back to
cards and flyers for your business in few moments). And that’s generated more,
since some people would rather click than call – exactly what you’re counting on.
While most people recognize these inserts as ads – and many find them
annoying – they are a good place to advertise for the right kind of business.
Articles
Anyone who has worked in an industrial or professional services business is
very aware that a huge percentage of the articles written for trade publications
(and some for mainstream publications) are basically just ads in disguise.
In your case all you need is to name-check or name drop the URL you want people to go to.
How each publication’s editorial process works is different, and the best
opportunity for each business in terms of article placement will vary – while
you’re on the masthead for a magazine to look up who their ad sales guy is, get the editor’s name and call her too.
What you can do here depends on a lot of things. For example we know a
consulting company in the paper industry that sells databases. Every year the
president barters for some article space in a few trade journals, writes a little puff
piece about how everyone in the paper industry needs better databases, and
mentions oh, by the way, visit our website to learn more. The articles are quasi-
informative, but they’re really just ads.
Some magazines – like Esquire and Scientific American to name two prominent
mags with completely different directions – have more content submissions than they could ever possibly use.
But regional magazines, specialty magazines, and local newspapers are often
hungry for content. They might even pay you a few bucks for your ad-disguised-
as-article on top of it.
New Media, Meet Old Media: TV and Radio
While both TV and radio execs worry that broadband will change or destroy
their markets, the fact is that TV viewership and radio listenership is higher than
it’s ever been, which you can leverage to drive Web traffic – and no, you don’t
need to produce and place a whole infomercial.
We’ll say one thing before we suggest you invest a nickel in traditional media ads: Have a very memorable URL.
Actually we’ll say another: Your product or service should make sense for TV or Radio
placements.
Assuming you do and it does, you’ll find that while national and major market
TV and radio spots will be too expensive for most businesses, local ads can be surprisingly affordable.
Now in most cases you’ll want to use some outside help such as production
people or a voice professional to help develop and produce this material, but
placing it can be done easily by yourself – most cable carriers and all radio
stations have sales people even more eager to talk to you than the magazine
people will be.
Cable Changed Many Things
Once upon a time before cable you needed to deal with a slew of network
stations, network affiliates and the collection of companies that owned and
managed them. You would also generally need an agency that had a relationship
to be able to negotiate for and place your commercials.
Today, with more than 300 channels available in many cable markets, most of the
local ad placement – outside of the networks but sometimes including them
during non-prime time – is handled by the Cable Company itself.
With 300 channels running 24 hrs per day, that is a lot of ad time to fill up.
Watch your local cable stations for an hour or two tonight. An ad about placing
ads with them is almost certain to come up, especially later in the evening (when
they can afford to use the time to promote their own need to fill up time).
No Experience Needed
They want to make it easy for local businesses who may never have thought
much about TV spots to start thinking about it. In the NY metro market for
example both of the major cable companies (Time Warner/Roadrunner and
Cablevision) offer fairly inexpensive production help in actually developing and
producing your ads, which is usually done in the same building as the local cable
news channel (since all the producers and production and post-production
facilities are there anyway and everybody likes a little overtime).
You may not get Madison Avenue results this way, but you won’t pay Madison Avenue pricing either.
You may have noticed if you watch TV yourself, that very small businesses like
print shops, pizza places, and family-owned shoe stores run commercials right
alongside car dealerships and national brands.
This is how. If they can afford it, so can you – the question is whether a TV spot
makes sense for your particular businesses.
You can also do very good demographic targeting these days both in terms of the
channels you choose to run on and the times. Obviously since you are doing a
drive to Web campaign mainly, make the URL the focus of the commercial! But
tell the people at the cable company who you’re trying to target – they’ll have
good data and good ideas about how and when and where to put your commercial.
Radio Ga Ga
While radio’s imminent demise has been predicted for some time, it’s really just
been an ongoing format change; the audiences are fairly stable and in some
markets still growing.
The satellite networks offer a major challenge on the music front, something of a
challenge on the syndicated talk front, but don’t really challenge local talk and
local news at all, and that is where we’d recommend considering placing radio spots if you want to place them all.
Local talk and local news will almost always give the most bang for the radio
buck because the audience is already listening to people speaking – on purpose –
which means both that your ad can be simple (meaning low production costs)
and will be heard more carefully.
There are basically four ways to place and produce radio spots:
• Produce them yourself. Literally, yourself. If you can do a podcast (see our
report on podcasting) you can
edit one to a 30 second radio spot.
• Have them produced professionally by a third party – this may include
voice artists or actors, production studios, an agency, and so on. In most
situations this will not be money well spent.
• Have them produced professionally by the radio station itself – like the
cable people these guys figured out they are sitting on untapped revenue
and in many places will be happy to work with you on a
production/placement package.
• A script that is read by the news anchor on air between stories.
For most businesses, especially where the point is a drive to Web, we like the
fourth one best.
Why? It’s usually cheapest, it’s high impact, and it comes with an inherent and
powerful appearance – and we say appearance – of endorsement by the news
anchor.
“Oh, Harley Carnes uses Brand X Itch Cream? I will too!”
The complexities of the scripted ads will vary with each market but we do
recommend discussing how those programs work if you are considering radio.
Radio can be used to sell anything, but we know it is especially good for certain
kinds of products and services:
• Legal products and services
• Financial products and services
• Medical products and services
• Health, fitness and lifestyle products
• Personal services (like matchmaking services)
• “Tony Robbins” style products and services – personal coaching,
consulting, anxiety or stress management, speaking skills etc
If you think about it, a radio spot can be a neat way to introduce a wider
audience to a podcast you produce for example – though make sure the radio
station is OK with that, since they may view you as “competition!”
Let’s Get Direct.
After you’ve considered all your online options, and have thought about print
and newsprint ads, local TV and radio spots, you still have two great categories
of offline options left.
The first and much bigger of them is direct mail. Before we dig too far into this,
let’s agree on what direct mail is.
According to answers.com and Houghton Mifflin:
Direct mail (n). - Advertising circulars or other printed matter sent directly
through the mail to prospective customers or contributors.
Of course “junk mail” is a derisive term for the same thing, so the trick is to make
certain that a reasonable percentage of your recipient group will be pleased – or
at least not hostile – to be receiving what you send.
Chances are very high you have done the email equivalent of direct mail –
sending the same marketing piece to a large list – and in the offline world the
opportunity is the same but comes in a variety of formats, methods, and
approaches.
“DM” can be used to mean both direct mail, and direct marketing, of which
direct mail is the biggest traditional component.
DIY DM
One option is to send your own direct mail pieces to your own (or a rented) list
of recipients
offline marketing channels.offline marketing strategies
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