Offline marketing

[GTrotter666]

Hi

I am a new user of this site, it looks very good.

Anyway I have a number of online businesses (see my signature for websites below) that I have been running part-time until the start of this year. As a result of this I have been trading almost exclusively online until now. I have now made the bold step of resigning from my day job (I used to be an actuary) and I am now devoted to these full-time and am looking for ways to market my businesses "offline" and reduce some of my reliance on online marketing. Has anyone got a long and generic list of marketing ideas from which I can start to develop a plan for marketing my businesses offline?

BTW - If anyone here purchases christmas cards for their business I will be running some discounts for early orders from my websites and can provide a discount coupon for UKBusinessForum members (if this sort of thing is allowed here!).

Thanks

Gary

[Place of design]

Knowing your market is one of the main things. For example - with the wedding stationary / favours - aim them at hotels and brides and wedding planners & calligraphers

The hotel market is much more high volume - many of them do packages where say place cards (for example) are included. So if you crack that market, they tend to ordr 1000's not 100's or 10's

There are several niche sites - Hitched, confetti, wedding ideas magazine

However these are VERY female orientated. The forums are very active, but they are wary of males in the whole. You may be worth looking at banner adverts, or getting a female to chat and promote your products

Being able to offer personalised products is an option that you should explore

Richard King
Webdesigner
Wedding photographer
(husband of a wedding planner)

[Place of design]

With regards to the cards - there is only one way
do the leg work, get them into shops - maybee on a sale or return basis. The smaller the retailer the easier it is and the better the deal. You may ned to invest in POS material

With regards to the weding favours - look at Bridal fayres, getting displays and POS in bridal shops, and venues. There are a few chains that sell this sort of stuff - hobby craft etc.. what happens to your margin is another thing

On a small scale there is craft fayres and shows. It may be worth touting for regular exhibitors that will sell your work allong side thiers for you

[scotmum]

How about sending out a press release about your wedding invites to one of the bridal magazines. Make sure you have a unique angle - what is better about yours than others out there? Do you have an interesting story that ties in with your products that a magazine would be interested in doing an editorial piece on you? You can also pay for advertorials in magazines. You could go for local magazines to start with to attract a local trade - I remember when I was organising my own wedding stationary, I actually felt more reassured when I could feel the quality of the paper, print and design and speak to the supplier in person. I was happy to be supporting a local business too.

[Computer Technology Ltd]

I must agree with Place of Design on this one. There's absolutely no substitute for getting up and going out to speak to people. Find out what people want from a supplier/service and simply do those things better than their current providers. Be persistent but not annoying.

I always look at it this way: If you sold sandwiches out of a van at lunchtimes and your competitor normally arrives at 1pm - make sure you're there at 12:30pm!

Customers are fickle, all they want is the best price, the best quality, the best reliability and to be as lazy as possible in getting each of those things. So go get in their face when they can't find an excuse for not choosing you to buy from!

Good luck!