Internet Marketing Tycoon

**ForrestCroce** · 02-06-2007, 04:27 AM

I've been giving this some thought lately for my own site, dedicated to photos, and maybe some of these ideas will help other people looking for more traffic.

Leave behinds. I've had a few popular photos of mine ( Big Basin, and Rocky Mountain Sky ) printed at 4x6 inches, which is amazingly cheap online. Both have my URL printed in the corner. I'm going to leave stacks of about 50 at different coffee shops I frequent.
Word of mouth. All of my friends have seen my site. As my portrait section grows, people have shown it to friends of theirs, coworkers with children, et cetera. Especially at the office, networking can be a good way to find new eyeballs.
Letters to the editor. If large corporations can write laws, there's no reason a smaller company ( or an individual ) can't write a letter to local or state papers. As a landscape photographer, I have an interest in things like the environment, or re-opening Mt Ranier National Park. Sign on behalf of your company or web site.
Bulletin Boards. You know, the cork things the computerized ones are named after. Make up a sheet like the ones you see on a pay phone sometimes, where you tear off the number at the bottom. I might do something advertising portrait photography; samples at http://forrestcroce.com/Galleries/FamilyPortraits.html.
I'm not sure how this translates to other types of sites, but I'm going to be supplying artwork for my doctor's office. There will be large prints, and little captions next to them with the price, my name, and URL. Probably if you can fit your site into a niche, you'll be able to find ways to fill it.

This is all in addition to regular advertising, which probably makes more sense on the web. Also, none of these will (directly) affect page rank, but they'll get me seen by a much more random bunch of people than those who read one of a handful of forums, or like a particular directory. Maybe that's what you want, maybe it's not.

Also, I'm hoping people like the leave behinds, especially, and that it might get mentioned in a local blog or two ... which would feed the google-bot.

Anything I'm forgetting, or thoughts?

**Popeye** · 02-07-2007, 12:05 AM

I put a biz card in every bill I send out. A long time ago, in a place far, far away, when I'd get that junk mail with prepaid postage on it, I'd not only put their mail in it and send it back with them telling them "Thanks but No Thanks", but I put in a card with my web site address on it and pics of the products I was pushing at the time.

Don't know if it really worked, but someone had to open all those envelopes!

**InfTekHosting** · 02-09-2007, 03:20 PM

I haven't tried it myself, but someone living in my neighborhood actually went around placing flyers on doors. It worked with me. I couldn't help checking out the website for a few minutes.

**Learning Newbie** · 02-09-2007, 06:11 PM

Now that's an interesting idea. More than once people have left fliers under my wiper blade on my windshield, but I take these off my car and drop them without looking. ( Well after I'm sure it's not a ticket anyway. )

Fliers on doors is probably more upscale.

**trichnosis** · 02-12-2007, 08:44 PM

your ideas are really intresting thanks for this

**bob** · 02-13-2007, 10:45 AM

Adding to this, other offline marketing options are;

Trade shows & Seminar
Local Networking through Chamber of Commerce
Radio & local cable

**promo2go** · 02-15-2007, 08:42 PM

Networking has brought me 20% of my business, but those 20% have bought $5,000 or more, every year.

We have clients promoting their website and services on our calendars. We use calendars, flyers and direct mail. But networking is fun and profitable!

**ForrestCroce** · 02-16-2007, 05:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by promo2go

Networking has brought me 20% of my business, but those 20% have bought $5,000 or more, every year.

There's the 80/20 rule, that 20 % of your customers bring you 80 % of your profit. Or give you 80 % of your headache ... they're probably both true.

Anyway, to follow up, last Sunday I brought 50 leave behinds, 4x6 inch prints with my URL watermarked into them, and left the stack at a coffee shop I go to on weekends. I missed the bus and had time to grab a cup of joe this morning, and there were two or three left. I think I can see a slight boost in visits, but it's hard to say. These were the images I used.

**pace** · 02-25-2007, 11:05 PM

Anyone know any good (cheap) printers of business cards? (UK based)

**ADAM Web Design** · 02-26-2007, 01:41 AM

This isn't my idea, but one of my clients uses it.

On his cube vans, he's got his company name and website underneath in 18" letters and drives around the city all the time. He's actually drawn business because people see the site URL, go home, type it in, and buy stuff.

Another cool gimmick I've seen a client do is to piggyback off a TV station (in the case I saw, The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. They allowed him to rent space in the CBC building on Front Street, arranged for a guest speaker from some Sunday afternoon intellectual talkfest that I forget the name of, and it paid off bigtime.

**greenlush** · 02-26-2007, 08:43 AM

some great ideas here, all my offline advertising apart from word of mouth i pay for. magazine adverts ect...

**mk6518** · 03-13-2007, 03:57 PM

Potentially flyering could work wonders, as the costs are so low per flyer. Obviously the problem arises with people simply discarding them, and personally the vast majority of flyers that I am given (being a student, for gigs etc) do little to change my opinion.

If you can find a way of targeting them to your potential market, however, flyering could be a success.