If you are operating a business that has both brick-and-mortar as well as online presences, it’s important to know how to make both worlds interact well with each other. Your offline efforts need to compliment your online ones and vice-versa.
• Do you have a website?
• Are you on social media?
• Do you have an email list?
No, I don’t interrogate people, but I like to get a feel for how they manage things and if they’re not doing something to bring those two vital parts of their business together, I might steer the conversation in that direction and offer them some advice. “Like what?” you ask? Read on…
Laying a Solid Foundation
For starters, every piece of printed content you produce should be pointing to the places online where your brand lives. I’ve mentioned ways to do this in previous blogs so here are just a few bullet points in case you need a memory jog (or just don’t want to have to read more than one blog post to get the info… and, yeah, I get that).
• Include your website URL on everything
• Use shortened links that are easy to type on a smartphone
• Make sure all your pages are responsive
• Include calls to action to visit your website in all printed content
• Use QR codes and similar shortcut methods to encourage site visits
Now that’s out of the way, let’s have a look at each of the three questions I posed above and explore how printed content can be used in conjunction with each.
Your Website
This one is simple, and I’ve already told you basically how to manage it. It starts but putting the actual site URL out there and making it as visible as possible. If your URL is 10 characters or less and is easy to spell and pronounce, you probably don’t need to use any shortening tools in print to get people to visit. If, however, it doesn’t meet one or either of those criteria, you might want to utilize a customizable shortened URL.
It is important to choose something that is easy to remember, accurately represents your brand, and is interesting enough to make people respond to your call to action. Get all three of those things right, and it equates to the perfect storm. If you are handing materials to people directly, verbally reiterate your call to action and let them know, “Our website is listed on top. Feel free to have a look.”
That brings up one more important point: placement of your URL matters. If it looks like it’s been included as an afterthought, that’s how people will treat it. Display it like it matters, and that’s also how they’ll treat it.
Social Media
There is a fine balance here between soliciting likes and follows and looking like a rabid social media fanboy. If you are on multiple channels (and by that I mean three or more), you might want to refrain from individually listing your page URLs in print. Instead, develop a landing page or optimize your website’s home page to solicit likes and follows for each once you’ve gotten someone to go looking for you on social media.
Some social media management tools can automate the process and help people like and follow along multiple channels with just a few clicks. Many of these are free but have premium options to streamline and simplify the process. I recommend making a small investment to get the best features.
This is one area where shortcuts like QR codes can really work to your advantage. A code that instantly prompts a person’s smartphone to go directly to your squeeze pages and lead magnets is a great way to encourage and capture opt-ins. If you feel you have to decide between any of the three, I strongly recommend this one. Why? Because email will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you. Check it out:
1. Stamp a QR code (or similar type of link code) to your business cards, brochures, and fliers with a call to action to join your email list. If they do it, they obviously want to join.
2. Capture their email address and first name in your squeeze page.
3. Send a personalized welcome message with links to ALL your relevant pages: website, social media, etc.
See where this is going? It can get your prospects plugged in to all of your brand’s online havens with just a single gesture on your end.
Final takeaway: Print is far from dead. If you use it well, it can bridge a major gap between your brick-and-mortar and online presences and help you develop solid customer relationships along all possible channels. Need help with the process? A reputable custom writing and content creation service like Beez can help you do it right.