Promote Your Website Offline

The Basics

Your URL should be printed on everything that may potentially come into contact with your customer. Remember that customers can be people who use your services or buy your products and they can also be other companies that you do business with. 

     
  • Business cards, letterhead and stationary, cheques, faxes
    •  
  • Product packaging - bags, boxes, wrapping paper, labels
    •  
  • Receipts, table tent cards, menus
    •  
  • Vehicle signage - vinyl or magnetic
    •  
  • Company uniforms - hats, shirts, smocks, jackets, bandanas
    •  
  • Store windows & signage

Give it Away

You can also print your company URL on all types of swag to give away to your customers. Here’s a small sample of what’s out there:

     
  • Mugs
    •  
  • Notebooks
    •  
  • T-Shirts
    •  
  • Tote Bags
    •  
  • Pens
    •  
  • Sticky Notes
    •  
  • Mouse Pads
    •  
  • Magnets
    •  
  • Calendars
    •  
  • Invitations and Announcements
    •  
  • Caps
    •  
  • Pins
    •  
  • Keychains
    •  
  • USB Flash Drives
    •  
  • Tape Measures
    •  
  • Computer Cleaners/Letter Openers

There are no shortage of things that can be customized to help promote your business. If you choose something along these lines, shop around as prices can vary. And find a product that makes sense for your type of business.

Other Ideas

I’ll also assume your staff are familiar with your company website and can direct customers to the appropriate content if needed. Your staff do know you have a website, right?

Do you put up a Closed sign at the end of the day? Add your URL to it and let customers know you’re always open on the web.

Mention your URL during on-hold messages and company voicemail for customers calling after hours. Customers can sometimes answer their own question if they can find the answer on your website.

Keep it Affordable

Like all marketing efforts there will be a range of prices you can spend to make these things happen. Take packaging or bags as an example. You can easily have a rubber stamp made of your company logo and URL for less than $20. When your staff (or you) have some downtime, pull out the stamp and ink pad and pound out a stack of bags.

Think that a rubber stamp looks a bit too DIY for your corporate image? Try printing full colour stickers from a company like VistaPrint. Sticker prices are typically just a few cents each and you can even design your stickers and place your order online. Turn around times are surprisingly fast as well.

Do you have a storefront? How much street and foot traffic could you be promoting your URL to? Local sign shops can print out adhesive vinyl decals that can be applied to your windows or doors.

Measure and Learn

Do you know how many visitors your website receives each day? Do you know if your web traffic is up from the same time last year? While you don’t have to know this information yourself (your web guy or gal can do this for you) there should be a tool in place to measure your website traffic.

Google’s Analytics can be added to a website quickly, easily and it’s free. If you want to increase traffic to your website to have a tool in place to see if your efforts are paying off.

Make the Destination worth the Trip

Have you ever seen a URL in a magazine and then gone to the website only to find it “under construction”. Nothing dilutes credibility faster than marketing an unfinished or unprofessional website to potential customers.

If you’re going to send people to your website make sure there is something of value for them when they arrive. You don’t have to give them 2 for 1 coupons (although you could - more on that in a future article) but visitors should come away with a good sense of what your business is about and what your company can do for them.