This is a guest contribution from Rohit M. @TeamVlogNation
Every blogger wants to promote their blog. Who doesn’t want more traffic?
When it comes to promotion, many bloggers mostly use the online world as their main marketing vehicle. The online world is great though, social media helps your blog and your daily posts go viral. You can tweet about your next blog post or send an email to your subscribers. Online marketing is critical for promotion.
But what about that, “offline world” that we all live in? Just because you turned off your laptop does not mean you can’t promote your blog anymore.
When it comes to marketing, offline promotion can be just as good as promoting your blog on the internet.
© Dmitry – Fotolia.com
Did someone say, “mini guide?” Yes!
This blog post will be kind of like a mini guide full of different ways you can promote your blog offline.
The tips and strategies explained below are not in any specific order. This is because; every method could work differently for each blogger. The same techniques do not work for everyone. It all comes down to what you feel most comfortable with, and what brings you the best ROI (return on investment).
Let’s get to the good stuff.
Branded Merchandise
What if you could do some blog marketing without even trying? Imagine all you had to do was just walk around and enjoy your day. By having branded merchandise about your blog, that is possible.
Let’s take a look at a few examples below:
T-Shirt Marketing
Your blog url on a t-shirt is all you need to realize the effectiveness that t-shirt marketing can have. You can get customized t-shirts just about anywhere.
Try checking out your local custom clothing shop, or online at places like Zazzle. By wearing a branded t-shirt with your blog url you can promote your blog by just walking around and doing everyday tasks.
Hand these branded t-shirts out to your friends and family. You can even give them away for free to people! This will increase the amount of people walking around with your branded shirt, which in turn leads to a bigger audience reach.
Extra Tip: It doesn’t always have to be a t-shirt. You can use other items such as branded hoodies, umbrellas, jackets, or even baseball caps!
Branding Your Everyday Accessories
© VRD – Fotolia.com
Having accessories that are branded with your blog address can also bring benefits. For example, here are a few ideas on the different types of accessories that you could brand:
- Coffee Mug
- Phone Case
- Pens
- Binder
- Water Bottles
- Bags
- and much more!
The point here is that you can turn your everyday accessories into effective marketing tools.
I’m always intrigued to check out a website or blog after noticing it through a branded item and I’m sure there are many others who are the same way. One great place online where you can get customised accessories is Cafepress. They have tons of different items that you can brand with your blog.
Extra Tip: Always try including your blog url. If you only have your tagline or blog name, it can sometimes be less effective and memorable compared to showing your url. By including a blog address you’re providing potential visitors with a direct destination to your blog instead of having to search it up.
Sticker Marketing
Who doesn’t love stickers? Branded stickers can be a great way to promote your blog.
You don’t want to, “sticker spam” (placing stickers on everything you find). This can be really annoying at times. But stickers do send the message! Imagine just placing a large sticker on your rear bumper or rear window. Everywhere you would stop with your car could end up attracting a new visitor simply by just noticing your sticker. Include a catchy tagline along with your blog address that will make people want to visit your blog.
You can also place your branded stickers on busy places like a bus stop, or your college message board. Every time someone walks by, they could end up turning into your new blog reader! You can also provide stickers to an elementary school for kids interested in taking them home (have a cool design that kids will love). This way you’re also getting your promotion across to all the family members!
Important Note: Make sure you have the permission to place your branded stickers in the areas you desire, because you do not want them getting removed!
Free Giveaways
© Tim – Fotolia.com
Did someone say free stuff?
This method works well if you giveaway items that people actually have a daily use for. You want to give away items that can be used daily and have your blog branding on them.
Two ideas that I have come across and think could work well are car air fresheners and mouse pads (two totally random items) but can be very effective.
Car Air Fresheners
Everyone loves a great scent in their vehicles. The air freshener I’m talking about is the one you place on the rear view mirror of a car. If you gave away an air freshener, the use for it would be daily. Every time someone hops into the car as a driver or passenger, they could potentially come across your branded air freshener.
This is not something anyone would throw away after coming from a trade show. The promotion potential for a branded air freshener carries a lengthy life span.
Mouse Pads
Using a branded mouse pad as a giveaway item is actually something that carries lots of promotional potential. A mouse pad with your blog address would be an awesome idea because the only time anyone would be using a mouse pad is when their on the internet. They could end up visiting your blog very quickly!
Quick Note: This is also something you could give away to high schools or universities to use. Every time a student is in the library or computer lab they could get the message off the mouse pad and end up visiting your blog!
Extra Tip: Whenever you’re doing branded giveaways for promotion, always try giving away items that could be used daily and don’t have a, “short use” span. Giving away branded accessories that can be used daily ensures that your blog is also being promoted daily!
Networking And Socialisation Events
Networking with others in the same niche or industry is a great means of communication. Word of mouth is great when it comes to marketing. By attending networking events you can have one on one conversations with others and this is a very effective way to promote your blog. Networking with people is the best way to establish a connection between a reader and a blogger.
© scusi – Fotolia.com
Starting Your Own Meet up
Networking events in your niche or industry might not happen that often. So if there are no social events for you to attend and meet others, you can just start your own.
You can start a meet up group with your friends and readers who are located in the same city. You could discuss the latest news, gossip, and trends in your niche. This is also a great way to promote your blog when you have new faces showing up and taking part in your meetups!
This method actually works great to promote the blogs of all those attending and could end up establishing great relationships leading to further collaborations.
Extra Tip: When attending networking events, you can register as an event sponsor. By becoming a sponsor you can attract not only the attention of those who attend but also the media covering the event. If you do become a sponsor, this would be a great time to do giveaways similar to the ones we discussed above.
Think Outside The Box
© iTake Images – Fotolia.com
Creativity is important when it comes to promotion. Marketing companies are always looking for the most innovative ideas to use for promotion. You as a blogger have to think the same way in order to maximise your promotion potential.
Think outside the box. Try coming up with different and creative ideas that you could use to promote your blog. Here are a few promotional ideas I have come across and think are pretty cool!
Library – Bookmark Promotion
This idea is pretty sweet. The library bookmark promotion technique!
The two things you need for this to work are a branded bookmark and a library. You need to create a branded bookmark with your blog info and your web address. Then head over to a public library. This is where you can try and negotiate a deal that has the library include your bookmark with every book checked out for rent. Or just sneak them into random books!
Your library may provide book rentals for hundreds or even thousands of books per day. Just think about the promotion potential when every rental could end up turning the book reader into your blog reader!
Default Homepage Method
The way this promotional strategy works is by turning the default homepage of a web browser into your blog homepage or recent posts page.
You want to scale up the amount of default homepages you change to your blog homepage so try finding a place where the computers are being used daily for internet purposes.
Some places you can try visiting to arrange a deal for this method (by deal I mean your payment, negotiation or proposal) are high schools, universities, libraries, or internet cafes. The internet browsers mentioned in the locations above are used a lot on a daily basis. Every time someone opens up the internet browser, your blog will be the first thing to load. If interested, the person using the computer will read on.
Just think about how many times each computer is occupied on a daily basis by different people. This method gives you a high reach in promotion!
Time To Get Marketing
I hope you find something that works well for you in terms of promotion and helps take your blog to the next level!
Just remember, when it comes to promoting your blog, be creative and innovative. Just because no one else is doing it, doesn’t mean it won’t work. There’s a first for everything!
I would love to get your feedback and a discussion going on so leave a reply on what works best for you when promoting your blog without the internet, and any other creative ideas you think could help bloggers when it comes to offline promotion?
Rohit is the leader of the editorial staff at VlogNation.com – An Online Guide for Video Bloggers. In addition to working on VlogNation, he also enjoys sports, travel, and keeping up with the latest tech trends!
Interesting.
I never thought in this direction
Hi Rohit,
I like the bookmark promotion idea.
All creative means.
I also heard of a neat strategy; ad drops in books at book stores.
Not sure if it is entirely ethical but darn effective.
Thanks!
I love the sticker idea. I’m definitely going to look into that. I have branded things for my blog but only for me. I don’t give them away because I don’t have enough readers yet but maybe one day.
I have been thinking about this alot.
Though the internet is quickly becoming immensely popular, there are still many (as hard as it is to believe) that don’t interact with a computer nearly as much as some of us die-hard bloggers. In many cases, those people avoid the internet completely….except, of course, when they come across a TV advertisement or some other kind of offline advertisement that piques their curiosity. They may then rush to the computer to type in the web address/URL. I can testify to this happening….there have been times where my grandmother has seen an advertisement with a web URL, and, has then proceeded to help her access it through her rarely-used computer.
A brilliant facet behind this is that someone who rarely interacts with the internet–like who may be captivated by an offline advertisement–also may make very suitable customers as they are unlikely unfamiliar with the many forms of blog monetization. They may vigorously click Adsense ads, or purchase from Amazon/etc affiliate links. I’m not saying to take advantage of reader’s possible naivity, however, these individuals may really end up being great long term customers simply because of this degree of naivity. I have also been really thinking about possibly having car bumper stickers made. It’s simply amazing how many opportunities many of us are missing simply because we are so accustomed to the online world. That seems like it could be really quite limiting in the long run and short run.
Thanks for such a great post here, Rohit (and, Darren!).
I totally agree with that Julie. I think Hybrid media is the future. The internet peaked and started to dip again and like you said, not everyone lives their lives wired to the web! I have friends ask me all the time how i spend so long online.
I like these ideas of promoting our websites in offline mode. Its interesting to promote our website through t-shirt marketing and we can also use visiting cards.
Thanks for these innovative ideas
Hi Rohit
This is indeed a different approach to blog promotion. I once thought of making stickers for my blog. It’s good to think out of the box.
Thanks!
Rohit, thanks for these great ideas! I’m a huge fan of offline marketing. Also try bulletin boards at local coffee shops, libraries, colleges, community centers, etc.
The bookmark idea at the library is genious. It’s going on my to do list. Thanks mucho!
Be careful with the bookmark/cards ad idea
Been finding ad drops in books at stores and library for years as this is the brain child of MLM marketers
A lot of people find them offensive -myself included- and I immediately throw the ad/card/bookmark away-while filing the person away in my mind as a desperate sham man
Hi Ryan,
I’m glad you found this information helpful. The bookmark promotion idea is one of my favorites as well. I think it is something that you can really scale up!
Yes, I agree. There are tons of strategies out there that we can all use. It all comes down to creativity and what brings you the best ROI.
Some great ideas here. I’ve never heard of branded car air fresheners before.
Aren’t giveaways free anyway?
I found a really busy diner where every patron has to pay at the counter and got them to put a standup plastic flyer holder full of my flyers righ next to the register…about once a week i have to replace the flyers. So i’m going to add a “thanks for the support” page on my website with their logi on it and others that allow the same flyers to be displayed.
There is one offline strategy that have worked wonders for me. I have made a deal with a couple of newspapers vendors to insert my flyers in the newspapers before selling them.
These are really some great ways to promote our blog offline. I tried only T shirt marketing for the list. Surely I’ll try rest of all very soon. Thanks for the share.
Similar to the sticker idea, I use business cards. My site focuses on computer security and since I work as an IT contractor it’s a perfect match. I end up handing out a lot of my cards to our clients. I keep it extremely simple with the same theme/colors as my site. They’re very unique, different than all the other business cards sitting on their desk. They’re burnt orange in color and sort of 50’s and cheesy. On the front is the URL and tag, on the back is my logo. No names or email, just a promotion for the site.
Since I started doing that everyone who gets a card remembers my site, as opposed to maybe 5% who remembered when I just told them about it. And cards have a way of hanging around and being seen, especially if they stick out like mine do.
Hello Rohit and Darren,
Thanks for sharing a perspective most blogger forget. Makes good sense and I’ll definitely start implementing some of your suggestions.
Best,
Anders Hasselstrøm
Blogging about happiness, motivation and personal development
I use business cards. Since my site correlates well with my day job, I can hand out a lot of them to our clients.
great technique
Love these ideas. I’ve got a few branded shirts out there for my blogs but I love the bookmark idea. I’ll definitely be trying this!
Off-line marketing needs a little creativity. You have to look if your message cover your maximum target audience or not. The element of comic amplifies your message a little more. So one need to apply creativity to publicize his blog widely.
Interesting post. I like some of the ideas you’ve raised.
Just thought I’d mention you could track the effectiveness of these marketing techniques by using unique URLs, landing pages and even promotional codes, all of which could be tracked in Google Analytics. Then you’ll know which marketing techniques drive the most traffic and convert.
The T-Shirt option is very interesting and I will surely get one done for myself although i cant afford to customize many and give it to others but atleast the one i am wearing will still work to some extent and my Tech Blog will be the BomB… Thanks Darren for making ProBlogger possible.
The T-Shirt option is very interesting and I will surely get one done for myself although i cant afford to customize many and give it to others but atleast the one i am wearing will still work to some extent and my Tech Blog will be the BomB… Thanks Darren for making ProBlogger possible.
I really like the homepage method technique and do think it is something that can be scaled up! As an Internet marketer it’s always great to come across articles like this. I also think something like a coupon added with the bookmark would be helpful. Nice tips!
Great tips, Rohit! Another thing you could add to this list are blogger conferences. Meeting other bloggers is a great way to grow relationships that can lead to you partnering together (and expanding your blog audience).
These tips are just what i was looking for. But instead of using the tips for promoting my blog i will use them for my vlog! My favorite is branding your items, especially with a direct destination because people will know exactly where to find you! Awesome!!
This is a great post and so much is done out there to promote blogs online (maybe it has to do with the fact that so many people hate actual marketing in person) but I would love to see more blog posts in generating more traffic from sources that aren’t online.
Always loved your article @Darren Rowse.
What a refreshing topic! Of course, my mind can’t help but pull these offline ideas into the online landscape – just imagine branding your blog logo on T-shirts and having friends and family wear them in photos for Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Very quickly, the T-shirts themselves could become coveted items amongst your community online, and you might even be able to promote your blog further using contests with the T-shirts as prizes!
Cheers,
Sarah Bauer
Navigator Multimedia
What a blast to read. Love it, and consider it bookmarked as well. I try to promote locally, but haven’t gone offline yet. Very interesting stuff. I am going to look into t shirts and can probably make some book marks myself and have them printed out. Thanks for the brilliant ideas,
Josh
I think to promote the blog offline is not easy for every one but in my opinion there are few ways which you can do this
write on college blackboard
Tell your friends to promote them
write on public places like Air port and railways stations
write on all friends books
I love this! Really great ideas…I’ll start wearing a t-shirt with my site’s name on it from now ^_^
Goodness me! I did two of those today including pasting my sticker with my blog URL on my laptop. I had to sit in the bus stop, when i got home, I saw 900 new visitors to my blog. So, it works for me!
Wow! We actually have a blog for our junior baseball team that we wanted to expand in our community. We were thinking along the lines of branded merchandise but the rest of ideas could also work. Amazing post! Thanks and you have a great blog Darren very helpful!
Great post again.
I have used some library promotions to promote my blog.
Getting different books from different shelves from different departments and leaving my blog’s address in it and has worked out great and I even saw some traffic increment in those days.
However I left that a long time back as it was not a long lasting marketing strategy.
Below are five ways you can use offline marketing tactics to enhance your online marketing goals
1. Business Cards
2. Mailers
3. Promotional Products
4. QR Codes
5. Meet Ups/Events
I like the subject of this article, after-all traditional marketing shouldn’t be forgotten, it can bring in some great results, especially combined with online. Just make sure they are both integrated otherwise you could be missing out on something. A basic example just for demonstration – make sure you put the URL on the leaflet.
All great tips, some I have already done and currently do. One thing I never thought of was a custom water bottle! With two kids in sports, they could have their Mama’s blog URL on their water bottles, silly me for not thinking of that!
Great content!
I think those days, there are a lot of people concentrate about their advertisement on Internet and they just forget, there is a whole world out there, where we can have a good strategy to increase audiences for our blog. i really like the Idea T shirt, very nice and your can organize some interesting event also.
Thanks for your sharing.
Stephan
Love the idea of starting your own meetup and also the think outside the box methods, really creative! Thanks for sharing so many tips, Rohit.
Great article and ideas!!
Thank you for sharing! I realize there are so many way to promote blog offline which I never think about.
Thank you for the insightful information! Sometimes hearing someone else make suggestions resonates differently. We forget to think about ourselves. Love the library idea.
Thanks for these awesome tips. I needed a guide to promote my travel blog offline, and this post will be very useful for me.
These are excellent ways to promote your blog offline. People often forget the power of using promotional products such as t-shirts – few people can resist getting and wearing a t-shirt for free and it acts as an ongoing ad for your blog. Business cards and stickers are also great ideas.
Thanks for sharing this great article. These are great ways to promote your blog and get more traffic to your website. Business Cards and Sticker Marketing are also great for offline and online marketing.
So what’s the point of owning a website if you can just use a blog? This is the best info I have read today and I hope other people can see that as well. I use postcards and door hangers to get traffic to my landing page and opt ins are great.
Hello admin, great offline tips of new blogger. I think we can also promote our website through offline marketing and to read this Article also get a new idea .. So thanks for sharing
Hello admin, Awesome article and i also gain much knowledge from this article. My first site is also about Movies and now i plan to make some thing bigger through offline marketing.. So thanks admin to share this article
Hey Rohit, I’m glad to have found this today.
This points are really interesting points and I can’t help but save it on my computer for future purposes.
I love all the points and I resonated well with them, especially the bookmarking one. You really elaborated well on it and I bet it deserves to be shared.
I mean what is the essence of owning a website/blog and people aren’t patronizing it such that they read, like comment and share your works with their friends. It doesn’t make sense at all, isn’t it?
The next and the best thing to now do in this case to start promoting such works. Of course there are various methods and this are surefire ways of doing just that and one that will make those traffic stay put to your blog/website.
Whoever is willing and obedient to follow Rohit’s guide will of course laugh best at the end. Note, you have to get ready for the traffics as they might also crash your blog if you aren’t careful. :)
Thanks for sharing this all important post with us.
Stay blessed,
Sam
I agree with you completely Offline promotions for blogs are the best way but some how online promotions are also needed……
I’m a web designer and marketer who helps local businesses get online. I’ve been thinking of getting branded coffee mugs, mousemats etc, but then I thought about my target audience a little bit more and what might helps them more – I came up with the idea for getting USB flash drives branded with my logo and web address. It’s functional and useful.
Also the library idea!! I LOVE the idea of sneaking bookmarks into random books! Especially if you can target particular chapters relevent to a particular page or post. Now technically it is spamming, but so novel I think we would be forgiven for doing this!