4 awesome ways to combine offline and online marketing to explode sales.

Studies show that print marketing isn't going anywhere any time soon.

Matter of fact print marketing in conjunction with online marketing will reinforce further and set you apart as a small business when other competitors are using only one or the other. 

Diversification has always been the proud moniker of many investors in business. Such similar ideas should be when it comes to getting leads.

Placing all your eggs in one basket for leads is not smart. I know people who had entire industries pulled from under their feet because their entire business was built off the back of one lead generating solution. Instead it is much smarter to use multiple mediums to build your following. 

I have been saying this for many years now. Multiple mediums connect with people in a way that online alone can't.

Matter of fact email marketing while very promising pales in comparison to print marketings conversion rate.

There is still something very tactile that people love about books paper and the like. It is why Free Plus Shipping offers work so very well. Book sales have rose in the last 2 years, print materials are holding tight at a 66% market share measured by the CMI 2015 report. 

Print will never die.

Because too many people have been raised on print and print does not need a battery charge or anything similar. A book or a document you can take anywhere. 

So here are a couple of ways to use print and online together: 

1) trial card to drive a person to a landing page 

This is a direct marketing tactic that works pretty well. On your trial card that you hand out at events, or in various ways (via students) etc.

You direct them to a specific landing page (preferably a sales funnel page) that is specific to the exact program that is on the trial card.

Essentially you are using the trial card to get attention in the real world then to drive them to an online source where they can either sign up, opt in, make and appointment or buy a trial. 

2) Rack Card to a Blog Post - To a Landing Page. 

This is a form of soft selling. It takes more work and it does garner less leads. On the outside looking in you would think that's a bad thing. But in reality this is a very important thing in building email lists and prospect lists. Not all leads are created equal.

The great part of this concept is it warms up your prospects. By not trying to sell instantly to them. Instead you have a rack card with information about your program that primes the pump for an interested person to have their interest peaked. From there you send them over to a blog post.

That blog post is essentially more valued information that is going to shine a light on the problem and make the person away of the solution.

You then place your landing page link in the body of the blog post. The great part of this here is you can use a Facebook Pixel to retarget people who have visited that page with FB ads.

This does take a bit longer to gain leads from. BUT the leads you get are very warm and positioned to purchase from you. Plus you delayed the sale as long as possible. Building trust. 

NOTE: Having cohesion in all of your marketing is a huge deal. Too many school owners and business owners when using martial arts marketing, or any for of martial arts print marketing they literally have such a disjointed message. When things don't match like your home page and your landing page or print materials and online materials you break your message, confuse your viewer and do not build trust in their hearts.

3) Using customer on-boarding packages 

This is very popular and we have done this for many school owners such as Top Kick, Bushi Ban, Elite Martial Arts, Top Gun Karate, and One Martial Arts.

This is to use new student packages that have multiple documents. You can use sample folders and put in new student documents in them.

The great part of this is to include both ideas 1 and 2 as cards in these packages which will essentially get your offline prospect to come online and go down a sales funnel of their choice depending on what type of card they gravitate towards.

4) Using a free plus shipping offer
(this works good for informational products)

This concept works so well Facebook is looking to ban it. Everyone loves something that is tangible and free.

Free plus shipping is a bit tricksy. It makes someone believe they are getting something for free if they pay the shipping.

Often you lose a little money on this offer to make it back on the back end. But it does something that a lot of other offers don't. It qualifies that the person is an action taker. They opened their wallet for a small purchase that means that there is a very high chance they will open their wallet again.

The issue with free without any payment is it is very low risk for anyone who is interested in it to take it without much skin in the game. Having skin in the game or some investment even a very small one is how you can qualify if the person is really serious about using your services or someone who is just a tire kicker. 

These 4 ideas are actually old as can be, but just modified to incorporate online and offline business marketing practices into a cohesive whole that works.

We've seen it work, we've seen others use it, I've used it, and all of them work very well to move people down a sales funnel.