319 – Rule the world offline: Tom talks Offline Marketing

Episode 319 – Offline Marketing
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody it's Tom here with episode three hundred nineteen of Screw the Commute Podcast. Have you hear some rumbling in the background? There's a big thunderstorm coming, but the show must go on. All right. Yes, I love online marketing and I have been immersed in it for now, 26 years since the commercial Internet started. But I was in formal business 18 years before that when there was no online marketing. So today I'm going to talk about offline marketing. If you master both online and offline marketing, you can rule the world. And I'll get to that in a minute. All right. Hope you didn't miss Episode 318 on sales webinars. I've made a ton of money with free webinars where there's something for sale at the end. And then I've played the replays sometimes for years. Now, in that episode, I give you the exact structure of how I made money with these so you'll be able to replicate it. So how would you like to hear your own voice here on Screw the Commute? Well, if the show has helped you out at all in your business or giving your ideas to help you start a business. We want to hear about it, visit screwthecommute.com, and then on the sidebar, there's a little blue bar that says send the voicemail, click on it, talk into your phone or your computer. Tell us how the shows helped you and put your website on there, too, so we can get a big shout out in your own voice. All right. While you're over there, grab a copy of our podcast app at screwthecommute.com/app and you can take us with you on the road. It does all kinds of fancy things. Put you on hold if you get a phone call and then starts your podcasts up where you were listening after you hang up the phone and all kinds of stuff. And we have instructions for you at screwthecommute.com/app and then grab a copy of our freebie that we give out just for listening to the show at screwthecommute.com/automatefree where you will get an ebook that we sell for 27 bucks, but you get it free for listening to the show. And I guarantee you it will save you enormous amounts of time. You'll make more money because you got this e-book and it'll save you from getting carpal tunnel. Save me seven and a half million keystrokes. We figured it out actually a couple of years ago. All right. So grab that at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. And all this stuff will be in the show notes for episode 319. So you go to screwthecommute.com/319. All right, everybody still freaking out about the pandemic, but not me sitting here selling stuff around the world from my desktop. And I've been teaching it to people for over 20 years. I mean, probably 23 years. I've been teaching this. All right. So so it's not like I'm just giving you a book report. And I formalized my training in two ways. One is my mentor program and the other is my school. It's the only licensed, dedicated Internet marketing school in the country. You can attend it's distance learning. So if you can hear my voice and have an Internet connection and can speak English, you can attend this school. You can be making money literally in a few months before you and long before you even graduate. I mean, that's the kind of school it is. It's a hard core, skill based school that teaches you things that are in high demand. Every business on the face of the Earth, these Internet marketing stuff, email marketing, text marketing, shopping cart systems, blogging, all this stuff, video marketing, it's all in there. The nuts and bolts, things that I use every day to make a fortune online. So check it out at IMTCVA.org either for yourself or maybe you have kids or grandchildren that you don't want them stuck in debt and having crap jobs at Starbucks. Right. So check it out. Give me a call and we can discuss it.

[00:04:38] All right, let's get to the main event, offline marketing now we're going to discuss offline marketing of your Web site, which means all the things that really aren't electronic. Some of them have electronic aspects to them, but they're really not online websites kind of stuff. And some of them are going to sound like no brainers. But what I want you to go back and look through everything written about you and see if it's pushing people to your Web site. We're going to start out basically with business cards and stationery. And the first thing would be your business cards. Now, first of all, is your website listed? Yeah, probably. But is it readable?

[00:05:19] Does it have letters like the letter L. that when printed in lowercase, looks like the number one. Is the print large enough to be easily seen, also check the same thing on your stationery if you have any even more? Because I don't know anybody who sends letters too much anymore, but make sure your websites mentioned there, too, and have you use techniques to force people to keep close tabs on your card so that when they get home, they will absolutely want to visit your website.

[00:05:53] Here's a technique based on a copywriting element called the Zeigarnik Technique. Bluma Zeigarnik was a Russian cycle psychologist and psychiatrist who identified the principle of the human mind that the human mind cannot stand unfulfilled curiosity. So we can use this on our business cards. So you put something, let's say, of great interest to someone in your target market. Let's say you're a realtor. You put something on the back of your card that says, do you know the secret of saving an additional one percent interest on your next mortgage? Well visit sallysellshomes.com/secret to find out. Well, people can't help but want to know the secrets, so they will visit your website to find out and then maybe you can make them opt in or just display all your services and credentials and testimonials once they get there.

[00:06:54] At any rate, your business card got you a Web site visit by a prospect instead of your card just being thrown in a drawer and ignored like most of them are.

[00:07:07] All right, let's jump to voicemail. What about your voicemail messages? If it's voicemail, then somebody is calling you that wants something, maybe information on your services, maybe they're ready to buy right then and they usually want it now. That's with capital N O W, OK, because that's the way the world is. So if you don't mention your website where they can go get what they wanted, they're not going to wait around and get frustrated. They're going to call me OK, or somebody else that sells what you sell. So go to your voicemail message and make sure your website is mentioned on it. Also spell it out. So it's very clear, like if they're calling for certain stuff, I'll say that's Antion.com. All right. Now, the entire mention might go something like this. For immediate information on our products and services, please visit our Web site at Antion.com. That's Antion.com. Thanks for calling something like that. Right. I don't make you money because it's out there advertising for you and letting the people get the information they need while you're busy doing other things. Now, here's another thing that drives me crazy about voicemail. I hear it all the time.

[00:08:29] The voicemail says, I'll get back to you at my earliest convenience. What is your earliest convenience? That's terrible. That's like saying, well, you know, it's kind of put me out and bothering me to call you back. But heck, I guess I will when I got nothing better to do. That's what it sounds like to the visitor. The caller mind says, I'll get back to you as soon as humanly possible. What message does that send? It says, I'm going to take care of you, not me.

[00:09:06] I also mentioned one of my websites on virtually every phone call into my office, and while I'm talking to the person, I'm thinking what service or what freebies do I have on one of my Web sites that I can send them to visit? If it's a professional or aspiring professional speaker, when I get done talking, I say, don't forget to go to the website and check out our free stuff. I got lots of free articles for speakers and lots of speaker humor and all kinds of good stuff on the website. And then I give them whatever is appropriate, the site. Of course, when I get them to the website, they're going to be exposed to the many things which they can buy from me, too.

[00:09:49] Now, if it's someone calling about protection dogs, I'm going to tell them about my protection dog glossary at protectiondogselite.com and about the funny articles about when I first got my first protection dog.

[00:10:04] So they have something concrete to go to. And I got to take a sidebar. It was really comical. I remember the first day the trainers were trying to teach me how to handle my personal protection dog, which is a really big responsibility because of the damage they can do. So I'm tripping over the leash and my commands are shaky and they're in German, I might add, so I'm telling the dog to bite when he's supposed to heal. And and there's and there miss time so the dog doesn't know what's going on. And see, the dog was already highly trained and knew what to do.

[00:10:49] I could just imagine the dog thinking, oh, man, can't you get me an owner that knows what they're doing? That's that's my dog impression.

[00:10:58] But anyway, have resources ready whenever you're talking to someone to send them to your site and make sure the links are as easy as possible to remember protection dogs elite. Very simple. Tell them the glossaries right on the home page. All right. Telephone marketing. Well, there are two types of marketing that involve the recipient's telephone. One is voice broadcasting and the other is text messaging. And you say, well, wait a minute, there's a there's a third way Tom cold calling. Well, I cold called one time in my life and I thought I was going to throw up. Now I know and respect some cold calling experts, but I want nothing to do it. You see, my philosophy is celebrities don't cold call. And I want you and I teach you how to be a celebrity in your niche or niche shift, depending on what side of the tracks you came from. So I won't be covering cold calls here. Now for voice broadcasting. I use a service called AutomaticResponse.com. No, I don't use this too often because when I first did it, I got some complaints that it was too intrusive. Overall, though, it was very effective and people could opt out of the broadcast easily. I only use this now listen to this. I only use this on a customer list. So they had somewhat of a relationship with me and I even took out the customers who really didn't know me, like people that bought the eulogy, book and wedding books. They didn't know me as an Internet marketer or pro speaker, so I don't want to hit them up either. Now, there are two major ways you can use this on voice broadcasts. You can record a message that is broadcast to all the phone numbers on your distribution list.

[00:12:53] And the other way is you can advertise a phone number to call for the recorded information. Now there's a newer type of broadcast that's less intrusive and so far I think it's still legal is a voice broadcast that goes directly to voicemail. That way, the person is not interrupted from what they are doing to hear your recorded call. This is a much better because when they're interrupted, especially with all the darn robo calls hitting their cell phones, they really start to hate the person or company blasting them. In this case, their phone doesn't ring and they just see a voicemail which they can check whenever they have Tom. This lessens any poor thoughts of you, but I still only send these to people who would recognize my name. All right, text marketing now, on one hand, this is an extremely powerful form of marketing, but on the other hand, it still can be considered intrusive. So you have to be careful how you handle it. I really got some complaints on this when I first did it, people said I interrupted them with my advertising message when they were trying to board a plane and various other things they were doing where my message was an interruption.

[00:14:11] So if I were to do this again, I would make the person opt in specifically to get text messages from me and then I would use it sparingly. I you should tell people signing up exactly how many text they can expect, some text messaging services require that you do this and that you must guarantee that's all the messages you will send. Now, one thing is for sure, people look at their text messages and they normally do it within minutes of receiving them. And most immediately when they receive it now, they might wait a week or more to check their email. They may they may never check it at all or they may check it some time whenever they feel like it, but not text. They check it right now. Now, I don't want you buying a list of phone numbers and spamming text messages to people. All right. That's a great way to ruin your reputation. Make them opt in and know what they're getting.

[00:15:13] Now, you can send as many as you want as long as the receiver has agreed to it since text broadcasting is not free. I mean, you might have to pay per message sent so it can get pricey. So you should be judicial in how many text messages you send and make sure you're getting a return on your investment. Plus, for most professional people, too many promotional text would get aggravated and you can actually sell text messages. You could sell daily inspiration messages or your daily weight watching reminder or whatever short message you have. I could probably sell public speaking tips or Internet marketing tips. Now, here's some tips on text messaging, message marketing and a text message field to your ezine sign up form so you can get people to agree to it. Add text message, subscribe instructions to your printed materials that they see.

[00:16:11] Send the broadcast to your email subscribers, encourage or encouraging them or by bribing them to sign up, give instructions to sign up for your messages on all your social networks and websites and blogs.

[00:16:25] But just don't text too often. Make sure you don't text anywhere near sleeping hours. Also, this may be difficult if you do business worldwide and I'd say limit your messages to about 150 characters.

[00:16:39] All right, let's talk about stickers and label labels there, an inexpensive way to promote your site and jazz up your packaging if you send anything to people in the mail. I do a lot with stickers. Everything that goes out of my office has a sticker on it with my website address. So whenever I'm shipping a product, I have a website sticker on it, even if I'm paying a bill that I can't pay online. I said, whose sticker on? I figure they get plenty of my money, so maybe somebody will chip on my Web site and decide to buy something. All right.

[00:17:13] So every package we ship is personalized to I have a label with my picture on it and then hand written. We put a bubble coming out of my mouth where we put in Hello Joe or Hello Sally or Hi Sally from whoever the package is going to. So it's very personalized. I had some people the other day somebody sent one that they bought something for me 15 years ago and they saved the packaging hanging up on their wall. OK, promote at your programs if you're a speaker, you should promote your website at each of your programs. It should be in your hand out all of your promotional materials.

[00:17:50] Signage, there's a place called autoplates.com will have it in the show notes, where you can have magnetic signs and promotional materials and you can have a thing for your license plate that has your name and website on it. There's all kinds of things like that. You can get stickers and things for your windows and bumper stickers and all those kinds of things. Magnetic signs for the sides of your car. I even thought about doing a billboard or bartering with theaters to get a slide up while people are waiting to watch the movie. Wouldn't it be cool to have your name pop up? Visit Antion.com for free popcorn.

[00:18:30] Your print advertisements, products and product packaging should all have your website referenced. I told you how I do it with stickers and when you look at my books and tapes, the website is on there. It's not really tapes anymore CDs or just MP3 files, but I'm always mentioning websites you can go to. You want the website on your products because phone numbers change, however, if you have your own domain name, you know, then they can always find you wherever you move in the world, even if you change your phone number. Now, direct mail, I'm getting tons of postcards in the mail, some are regular size and some are really gigantic. All right. Now I still get sales letters in the mail. See, direct mail has increased and decreased is kind of a porpoise thing over time when when everyone started on the web, direct mail decreased tremendously. Then some bright idea mailers thought, hey, nobody's getting much direct mail, we'll start sending and we'll be the only ones they get. And so then everybody had that idea and they all started sending again. All right. So now it's hard for me to get excited about direct mail when I can reach 90000 people with just a few clicks on an email. But if you're good at it and you can get good at it and make it pay, I'm all for it. It's just another way to reach people. You just have to realize it's a lot more hassle and time consuming because you have to design the piece, pay for postage, get it shipped, all these things, you know, so so it's more hassle.

[00:20:05] But a lot of people have made a lot of money doing it. Now, advertising specialties like mousepads, mugs, pens, monitors, screen cleaners and all kinds of things can be printed with your Web address listed and you can give them away. I'm not sure how well these items pay off. And I mean, if I were to use this method, I'd want something that was designed to be near a phone or a computer so that when someone looked at it, they could immediately go to the Web and visit my site. I get a lot of my stuff at Stamonline.com, and it'll be in the show notes. You can also set up an entire store of this kind of stuff for free at places like Cafe Press and Zazzle.com at places like this, let you upload your graphic or logo and they will print it on demand. So none of this stuff exists until somebody buys it. Then they print your logo on it or your whatever T-shirt saying or, you know, like I said, they have mugs. We had a mug that said I stole this from Tom Antion house, you know, because people come here for the retreat's. So they they claim to have a million different products and you can make your own store and drive people to that with no inventory and then get paid for it.

[00:21:25] Now, free offline publicity, you can get tons of website visitors by writing articles for trade publications and doing radio and TV interviews now and podcast too, of course. Don't overlook this very powerful way to get people to visit your site. I co-authored a book on this very subject with Joan Stewart. She's known as the Publicity Hound. OK, and you can check it out and get a free sample and table of contents at Antion.com/publicityhoundTOC.htm. Again, it's in the show notes. You don't have to memorize that. The title of the book is How to be a Kick Butt Publicity Hound. And it's how I've gotten on radio and TV all over the world even long before the Internet was around.

[00:22:10] All right. Now, this next one I'm going to mention is a pain in the neck, but it can't. As long as it's still available, you can do it. It's called least access TV.

[00:22:22] Say the government has demanded that cable systems give a special rate to just regular producer people like us. But the cable companies hate it because the rate is so much cheaper, for instance, I ran a show in Phoenix, Tucson, where they had a million subscribers to the one cable system there after midnight. The regular cost for the time was seven hundred and sixty dollars. I paid one hundred and fifteen dollars.

[00:22:54] Ok, so the cable companies hate you and they'll try to do everything in their power to mess with you and discourage you. So sometimes you have to write a letter to the FCC complaining about them and then, you know, they'll get in trouble and fined if they don't take care of you. So but anyway, it's called least access TV. Haven't done it for a while, but it is a hassle, but it can get you on TV really cheap. Some smaller cable systems. You can run a half hour show for like 15 bucks, you know, so it may be worth it to you.

[00:23:26] So to check it out. OK, so here's just a recap of the the things that we talked about today. Business cards and stationery, voicemail, text messaging, mentioned stuff on every phone call, stickers and labels promoting your programs and in your handouts, signage on your cars or wherever else you know, you could put a sign, print ads, packaging of your products, direct mail, advertising specialties, free publicity and least access TV.

[00:23:58] So there's lots of places that you may be totally ignoring right now, or at least not doing them as good as you could. Like, for instance, the business cards do you have is the Zeigarnik technique on there to make sure people will drive to your Web site, say so if you want help with any of this or all of this and, you know, check out greatInternetmarketingtraining.com. This is my mentor program is the longest running, most successful ever online and on Internet and digital marketing. But see, once you have me in your corner. I don't get my big money unless you make a lot of money with the way it's structured, so I'm going to help you with whatever I can offline, online, professional speaking, whatever it takes to get you successful. And nobody at my level even talk to you, let alone help you one on one. Plus, we have a whole team of subject matter experts that you can make appointments with for YouTube and social media and websites and shopping carts and all this stuff. So they're available to you one on one during my program, and if you have a legitimate assistant that's working on your stuff, they can contact me and your people on your behalf say so. It's just an amazing program. There's none ever been like it ever. So check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com has lots of unique features, like an immersion weekend at the retreat center. We shoot video of you in our studio and all kinds of other perks.

[00:25:35] So check it out at greatInternetmarketingtraining.com and I'll see you on the next episode.

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