Are You Promoting Your Business Offline?

Don’t be fooled into thinking that digital marketing is just about generating and promoting online content. Getting out there and talking to your customers face-to-face is an essential part of the process because real world connections affect what happens online.

I’m talking from experience here. Giving lectures at Södertörn University last month boosted traffic to this site as did my trip to Norway. Participating in real life at conferences, speaking, and getting out from behind my desk is just as important to my online marketing efforts as working on new blog posts, ebooks, etc.

You can also help clients and other people in your network by talking about them to audiences. Last week I gave a talk to sixty 15 year olds about social media profiles; one of the cool knock-on effects was that they went out afterwards and signed up for one of my client’s Facebook Fan Page after I used it as an example of a school using social media.

Just imagine how pleased my client was to see a spike in “Facebook Fans”.

It all goes to show how a personal appearance can do a lot to promote business.

Even though it’s nerve-wracking getting up in front of people and showing what you’ve got – even for someone like me who has been teaching and speaking to audiences for over fifteen years – it can be worth it because as it gets noisier online, with more and more people seeking attention through blogs, vlogs, social media and advertising, making real connections still count.

So my suggestion to you is to consider how you could get out there more. Are there local groups or businesses you could talk to? School kids who will grow up to be the business people of the future? What are you doing to promote yourself offline?

Image:FlickrCC

Related posts:

1. Is Your Business Social?
2. An Interview with Jon Buscall
3. CEOs that Get Facebook and Twitter
4. Nurture Online Contacts, Build Your Business Blog
5. Do You Have an Integrated Communications Strategy?