Keir's blog

I'm interested to hear what methods of offline marketing people have found effective in promoting their websites. A lot of people who have become successful through SEM and have a bit of cash in their pocket are now realising that 'branding' and building real sites and real businesses is the way to go (as well as doing a little bit of blackhat on the side to keep the funds coming in obviously!)

It would be interesting to hear about the more unusual and non-mainstream methods of marketing that people might not be aware of. For instance, I read a book recently that discussed 'Undercover Marketing'. This medium involves using actors to stage situations whereby people overhear another group of people praising a particular company or product. For instance, a group of hikers are out walking, another group of hikers approach from the opposite direction. They are talking animatedly about this great new brand of walking shoes that are the best they've ever had. Obviously, things we overhear like that are more likely to sway our decision making process than obvious advertising directed at us. Another example of this is the story that Amazon paid lots of concierges in apartment complexes to leave Amazon boxes in the hallway in the morning. The supposition of the tenants passing these every morning is that this company must be good because lots of people in my apartment block are buying from them.

I quite liked these two examples and I thought they could work well to promote websites. Interested to hear from other people what forms of offline marketing they find effective.