The internet and digital marketing have made it faster and seemingly easier to reach a wide audience with your brand, however that hasn’t made offline sales and marketing promotion obsolete. Many businesses have jumped feet first into the digital marketing world and may have neglected the many forms of offline promotion that would help them reach their target audiences and sales goals. Here are 5 offline marketing tools you can easily and affordably use to help grow your business:

1. Direct Mailers

Direct mail is a great way to reach your prospects in a personal and physical way. The Association of National Advertisers found that direct mail averaged a 4.4% response rate, compared to email’s average response rate of 0.12%, ensuring that direct mail is still a relevant marketing vehicle. There are many forms of direct mailer types from traditional flat printed pieces to more creative dimensional mailing pieces which have been shown to have a 6 times greater average response rate over flat mailers. So what are dimensional mailer pieces? These are printed promotional pieces that have a third dimension beyond the length and width. They include boxes, tubes or containers that can contain further literature, a sample or promotional item. The extra dimension gives you an additional level of creativity, as you can use each of their surfaces to print information, graphics and branding on, you can also choose to include samples or promotional items in them. An alternative to delivering a solid dimensional piece is to use a pop-up. Pop-ups are fun and surprising for people to interact with. They are delivered flat packed and when the recipient pulls out the piece it pops up from a flat form into a 3D one. This still allows for each side of the shape to have interesting graphics and branding on them.

2. Brochures

In the digital age, it’s easy to view brochures and longer format printed pieces as being a little outdated, however, there is still a place for brochures and catalogues in the marketing world. Brochures are usually distributed in person by hand at events, meetings and trade shows, given to targeted prospects who are most likely to have an interest in your business offerings. They make excellent leave behind pieces following a sales call. Unlike a webpage a brochure is something physical that people can touch, keep and easily access, they act as a constant reminder of your brand, presenting it in a visually stimulating format that continues to reinforce your message. They can be referred to again and again and easily passed on to other work colleagues, and as more and more companies focus solely on digital marketing having a physical brochure can greatly differentiate you from your competitors.

3. Physical Branding

Brands have so much more authority if they have some form of physical presence. There are many companies out there that only operate in the digital space, but this may lead customers to question their legitimacy, having good physical branding will help overcome this challenge. Of course, not all businesses will have a bricks and mortar location with a whopping great sign on it, but does your stationery, packaging, business cards, quotes and invoices all have consistent and smart branding on them? Whether you have a physical location or not there are so many opportunities to communicate your brand allowing you to convey the first impression about your offering and then reinforce that message.

4. Customer Onboarding Packs

Great, you got the order!!! But what happens next? Many businesses focus their efforts on winning new business, but do they then try to retain that new customer, grow the business they have with the customer and very importantly, turn that customer into an advocate for their brand? A customer onboarding pack is a simple welcome/starter pack that can be sent out to new clients upon winning their business, it shows the customer that you truly value them, it can communicate to the customer expectations of how you will work together, the full set of services you can offer and the ethics of your brand. Sending a physical onboarding pack will have so much more value associated with it compared to a welcome email that could easily be lost in a junk folder or unopened. Within a physical package you could also include a small welcome gift, again building that sense of value with your new customer. A positive onboarding experience confirms to your customers that they made the right choice. Maybe you don’t just want to limit the onboarding pack to new customers, you may also want to think about how you welcome new employees to your team. A good welcome pack can ensure new team members settle in quickly, provide a clear message about your company’s culture and help them get up and running rapidly. Most importantly a welcome pack shows the new employee that you really value them, and it will help develop long term staff engagement.

5. Customer Loyalty Schemes

In the same vein as the onboarding pack, loyalty programs are designed to help retain customers, help grow existing business and build strong brand advocacy. The idea behind an effective loyalty program is that the more the customer engages with you and the more purchases they make, the more rewards they’ll get. There are many ways to execute and run customer loyalty programs from giving out coupons with purchases to more complicated point-based schemes or tier-based systems. The rewards customers receive may include discount offers, free product, gifts or charity donations. When setting up a loyalty program it is important to understand your customers and how you improve the value you provide to them. You may also need to consider local country legal requirements, taxation and your long-term marketing budgets.

Full Square are sales promotion specialists with in-house print facilities. Our team has decades of experience in providing offline sale promotion tools, so whatever you are planning or working on we are here to support, inspire and help you. Look out for more sales promotion ideas in our next blog post!