An increasing number of entrepreneurs and business owners are eliminating the overhead costs of running a brick and mortar location by launching an online-only business. Even if you still require office space, a workshop, inventory storage, or a shipping facility—the cost-saving benefits of selling products or services online is something that can’t be ignored. Online shopping are on the rise and since the pandemic, consumers are buying far more digitally than ever before, even electronics, luxury items, and clothes they would typically purchase in person.
With a strong digital marketing strategy, you can generate an attractive cost per acquisition and return on your investment, but you may still need to invest in offline business marketing methods. From business cards to direct mailers, swag, popup shops, digital billboards, a rented LED light sign board, and more.
The Marketing Essentials
You’ll still need to invest in a standard branding package, having a logo designed with separate graphics and icons for your printed materials and digital mediums such as your website and social media. At the very least, you’ll need business cards printed for yourself and key team members to hand out at tradeshows and networking events. Also, consider sending out postcards or direct mailers to your local area, clients, or in your peak selling cities.
Retailer POP Displays
You may not have a brick and mortar store but that doesn’t mean you can’t sell your products wholesale to retail locations. Some products can easily pop on a shelf without much fanfare, but take care when designing your packaging and displays for endcaps, cash register areas, display cases, or other POP displays. This might include any combination of mail-friendly printed stickers, cardboard displays, and digital graphics designed to upload to an HD or text-only LED light sign board.
Pop-Up Shop POP
If you have a city or two that your product is hot in or want to expand to a new region consider a pop-up shop, trunk show, exhibit, weekend festival, or other short-term retail locations. The key is in identifying a location that has a high volume of hyper-targeted traffic. For example, a booth at a 2-day health festival to increase brand awareness for your vegan meal replacement bars. Ensure your table, booth, or pop-up shop stands out with banners, displays, and maybe a LED light sign board. Be sure to leverage cross-channel marketing, with a pre-event digital marketing push and an event or location hashtag for each short-term retail location.
Trade Shows
The trade show remains alive and well and is an excellent offline business marketing method for driving live and online sales and targeting wholesale clients. Do your research before committing to a trade show, ensuring it is frequented by your industry or buying demographic, that an ideally located booth is available, turnout is high, and that previous attendees have been pleased with their ROI. Make no mistake, you’ll need to shine to stand out—but fees can be expensive so you must ensure it’s a sound investment.
Branded Packaging
If you have a product to sell and no retail location, it’s time to level up your packaging. Since your first impression for almost every client is digital, when their order arrives you have the opportunity to further connect and engage with branded packaging. Not to worry if you utilize a dropship supplier, as many (but not all), will package items with your essentials. This can include anything from a printed message inside the box, decorative tissue paper, a thank you card, beautifully designed product instructions, return/exchange instructions, and more. Even if all your drop shipper or warehouse can provide is a simple insert, ensure it’s branded and beautiful.
Further support cross-channel marketing and ongoing engagement by requesting a digital review or follow up with an order or product survey email or SMS once their order had been received.
Influencer Swag
If you utilize online influencers, consider providing them with more than just your product to post in their social media feed, but also branded swag that they will hopefully use after they post. Really consider who your demographic is and what products are useful. Sure, we all use water bottles, but invest in quality stainless steel instead of plastic. Brand it with a logo or catchphrase, but don’t make it too in your face. Ideally, keep a range of quality swag on hand and ask each influencer what they are most likely to use. Maybe even work with a print-on-demand company to customize their swag to their size and preferred colors.
Employee Swag
Don’t forget that your most enthusiastic influencers are your employees, so be sure to gift them with useful branded swag as well. Swag is the ideal new hire gift, end of year gift, or annual anniversary gift. Think beyond items that are useful at work such as a laptop bag or thumb drive, to items employees will use outside of the office. The higher the quality and more creative the design the more likely your team is to use it. Swag can also be part of your offline business marketing methods to ensure your remote employees feel connected.
Rented Ad Space
Rented ad space can also be highly effective during your busy season, at industry events, or any time of year in your key buying areas. This includes supporting charitable organizations that will add you to their online or event-specific donor list as a thank you. Explore ad space in a variety of budgets and venues, as long as they are hyper-targeted. This includes banners, printed posters, digital billboards, and a LED light sign board, and more.
Ready To Add A LED Light Sign Board To Your Marketing Mix?
If you would like to learn more about adding an HD or LED sign board to your marketing mix, we invite you to reach out to Mega LED Technology today. We have countless options to choose from for both brick and mortar marketing and short-term marketing displays. All our signs require a power source and our small scrolling signs plug into standard outlets.
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