Promoting your website offline

I was sitting in the doctor’s waiting room yesterday (annual grease and oil change) reading the paper, on one wall of the waiting room was a TV running a news program. One particular item, that I didn’t hear the beginning of, finished with the person being interviewed saying, in effect, "Check out our website". Coming into the item late, I had no idea who this person or company was, and nothing was identified after he’d made that statement. I kept thinking about that news snippet and on the way back to the office I paid particular attention to signs, banner, advertising etc in shop and business windows, and was staggered to find that the majority never had any mention of their websites.

On the back of some very informal research, it seems that many businesses don’t actively promote their websites on their hard copy promotional material or via other media channels that they might have access to. Given our experience of the growing commitment of businesses to search engine marketing (SEM) and paid online ads, it certainly is curious that some of the obvious and easy ways to promote websites are not being used while more and more funds are being devoted to SEM.

In this particular case, the answer isn’t why should I, but why wouldn’t I? Every piece of printed material that you produce in your business should have your website address placed prominently. If you have a shop window put your website address on it prominently. If you advertise in the press or on TV or radio, it is particularly important to always include your website address, in those media you only have limited space or time to tell the story about your business, whereas you can send visitors to your website where they can get the full story about you.

So don’t be shy, it won’t cost any extra to add your website address to promotional material or ads!