Whether you run a large corporation or a small local business, getting traffic to your brand's website is paramount. More traffic means more customers, better search engine rankings, and better visibility for your brand as a whole.
It's likely that you're already aware of general practices for driving traffic, as it's such a well-covered topic online. You've probably already heard about the importance of building an email list, writing great quality content, and promoting your content on social media platforms. But what about offline sources?
When it comes to boosting traffic, offline sources are usually overlooked, which is a real shame. When you utilize offline sources, it can have a huge impact on the amount of traffic your website gets. According to research from iProspect and Jupiter Research, 39% of consumers who perform online searches for more information ultimately make a purchase as a result of the influence of offline channels.
In this post, we'll cover seven key tips and best practices for getting traffic to your website from offline sources.
1. Put Your Site And Logo On Branded Merchandise
While driving traffic to a site is so often a digital thing, and people are spending more and more time on digital devices, you still can't beat something tangible. In fact, according to research, 52% of consumers state that their impression of a brand is more positive after they receive a promotional product from them, and half of consumers use such branded items on a daily basis.
So, promoting your site using tangible, real-world objects can be a highly effective way to drive traffic and boost brand awareness in general. One of the best ways to do this is with branded reusable bags that feature your brand's logo and URL, which you should ideally give away for free.
The bag is something that your customers will actually find practically useful. They'll use it time and time again when they go shopping. This will constantly remind them of your brand. Also, as the bag will likely be used primarily for shopping, it will probably be displayed in public for other potential customers to see. The bag will essentially act as a space-efficient, persuasive marketing tool that will provide your website and brand with consistent and repeated advertising.
Other tangible, real-world items that also work well include branded t-shirts and mugs. As added bonuses, you'll promote a positive image of your business and increase customer loyalty.
When promoting SEO PowerSuite at trade shows, we offer stress balls. People love getting those for kids and pets.
2. Print Out Brochures And Flyers (Really!)
Flyers and brochures might seem like an old-fashioned marketing method which doesn't really make sense in our digital age. But there are occasions when flyers and brochures become an effective means of driving web traffic.
At SEO PowerSuite, we use flyers and brochures at event marketing (more about it below) or to share with our partners. Our partners and affiliates distribute them at their local events, for example at SEO workshops, meetings of their local digital marketing groups, college marketing clubs, and such.
The usage examples above are relevant for software products like SEO PowerSuite. In the most general case, apart from trade event and shows, local businesses may distribute their brochures and flyers at grocery stores, dental offices, coffee shops and libraries, which have boards or some sort of space where you can post your flyer.
It's important, however, that you use them to their greatest potential. Stand out from the crowd and motivate potential customers to visit your site by adding some compelling copy to your brochure or flyer.
A flyer should include not only your company's name and logo, but it should also prominently feature your website's address and a strong call to action. This extra step will encourage the person that views the flyer to take action and actually visit your site, rather than discard it without another thought.
When it comes to brochures and flyers, a good strategy to get them to convert into website traffic is to offer the potential customer something - like a discount on your product, service, or free gift. At SEO PowerSuite, we include a special discount offer in our brochures.
This gives potential customers a strong incentive to visit our site. We also utilize QR codes, however, our understanding is that people don't use them much, and it's more important to have an optimized URL, e.g. www.seopowersuite.com/special.html, that users can easily type in and access the landing page (more ideas about the URLs to use are provided below).
3. Utilize Print Ads
Print ads still have their place, even in a digital world. According to statistics from iProspect and Jupiter Research, magazine ads drive about 30% of readers to websites. And while you can't necessarily fit as much information and persuasive copy into a magazine ad as a flyer or brochure, you can still include enough to motivate the reader and drive traffic to your site.
When you're crafting your ad, try to be as efficient as you can with the limited space you have available. Include your company's URL and a persuasive CTA. Also, if you can, try to squeeze in some kind of incentive. This could be anything from a buy one get one free offer to a 20% discount on your products or services.
Most importantly, however, make sure your ad is clear and concise. Your company name and URL, as well as any relevant keywords, should be clearly displayed. Small fonts don't necessarily work well, so opt for clear, bold, large text. Make it as easy as possible for people to act on the ad and search for your company online.
4. Create And Share Highly Effective Business Cards
Business cards still have their place in modern marketing, despite what you may have heard. They're the favored means of swapping information at conferences, and can serve as a memorable means of promoting your brand's uniqueness in any real-word situation. Furthermore, they can be an excellent tool for driving relevant traffic to your site.
Utilize the back of your business card - if it's blank, you're missing out on a potential traffic source. Include a concise, but powerful description of your brand and a persuasive call-to-action to motivate the recipient to visit your site.
Business cards are more easily shareable than other offline advertising mediums, such as flyers and brochures. They're very easy to carry with you, meaning they can be shared with anyone, anywhere. You can give them out to potential customers and at trade shows and industry events too.
5. Write Your URL (The Correct Way)
On all offline mediums - whether it's reusable shopping bags, flyers, brochures or business cards - always make sure that you list your URL in the most effective and translatable way; by which I mean, capitalize the first letter of every word.
For example, instead of searchenginepeople.com, write SearchEnginePeople.com. This makes the URL far easier to read and interpret. It also reduces the chance of it being remembered incorrectly and it enables the potential customer to visualize the separate words.
You need to make it as easy as possible for potential customers to visit your website. If it's too difficult to interpret, the reader will either not bother looking it up at all, or they'll enter it incorrectly.
6. Attend And/Or Sponsor Events
Attending events enables you to build relationships with those interested in the same industry, trade or niche as you. Use this opportunity to impact others in the physical world and drive more traffic to your site.
At SEO PowerSuite, we utilize events for driving website traffic. At industry shows, like Search Marketing Expo and BrightonSEO, we provide a wide range of touchpoints that are efficient offline sources for website traffic, like literature - which we distribute at our booth - badge inserts, attendee bag inserts, ads in magazines or brochures from the event, and lanyard sponsorship.
If you do attend events, make sure that you fully immerse yourself in the experience. Don't sit on the sidelines. Events are the place to interact with others and really make your brand's presence known.
7. Utilize Dedicated URLs
It's important to keep track of your offline marketing methods, to see which ones are converting well and which ones aren't. With that in mind, consider creating dedicated URLs for each of your marketing strategies.
For example, you might be exhibiting at a trade show and pitching one and the same special offer as part of three campaigns, including (1) booth literature, (2) bag inserts, and (3) badge inserts.
A high-level thing would be to have three different URLs for the three campaigns, for instance:
www.yoursite.com/event2016.html
This way, you'll get to know the effectiveness of each campaign and understand if it's worth investing into them in the future.
Make sure that any custom URL you use is easy to remember, makes sense to the user, and won't put them off entering it into their browser.
Conclusion
If you really want to maximize your website's traffic, you need to utilize offline sources. Using offline sources to get more traffic will not only up your SEO game, but can land you more paying customers and improve your brand's overall presence.
We'd love to hear about your experiences and thoughts on using offline sources for getting website traffic in the comments section below!
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* Adapted lead image: 
Some rights reserved by Phil Sexton
TIP #4 — Write Your URL (The Correct Way) — finally i have this in writing so i can refer people (e.g. Clients & Prospects) as they all think lower case!!!!