LooseSuits

Totally depends on what your site is about, but not too often is offline marketing more important than online marketing. Maybe if you share what you have done so far we can have a look at why it isn't working as you had hoped. If you are talking about the site that is linked in your profile I can see a lot of room for improvement. People don't visit sites unless they see value in them and no amount of marketing will change their minds.

Having just seen your site, I agree with Scrivs on the improvement needed part. That said, there's no substitute for word of mouth marketing and face to face communications. Still, that's rather limiting unless you have a site of mass appeal like Slashdot or Fark, in which case your users -- who are getting a fair amount of benefit from the site -- will become your advertising anyway, leaving you to do not much more than online marketing (as well as a live presentation or two).

Of course, you can always get into the off-line marketing side of things by writing for newspapers or magazines, or offering yourself as an expert on X subject (if your site is about said subject) which local news sources can call upon for information when needed.

In the end, however, there's no substitute for one thing: value. All the marketing in the world isn't going to make your...

- pet rock: short term success as a pet; the equivalent of (or even quinticential) meme if you will

...into a...

- dog: long term success as a pet and loyalty by "owners", or those who have a sense of ownership because of the value provided them

I hope this makes sense. Been on overdrive the last few days and it has sux0r3d.

Focusing marketing on the market you are in is the first port of call. That can be online or offline. Knowing your market is also the key analysis part of this.

thanks guys for your sharing.. learnt a few new tips... my site now is based on Internet Marketing... and I managed to get hits now.. now the challenging part is converting them to customers.. =P

To Scrivs,

I do get repeated visitors to my website due to my offline efforts to tell people.. then people visit my website.. and also due to my regular newsletter been sent out..

Any suggustion how I can improve on my website? In a sense build more real traffic to my site

Offline marketing, for almost ANY website is VERY VERY IMPORTANT! I tell this to my clients all of the time. Most companies and people want to assemble a website, or through up a blog, add adwords and tada, receive millions of dollars in revenue or a constant stream of qualified leads. After looking over the analytics for hundreds of sites over the last five years it is pretty easy to see that offline, direct traffic generated from actual, physical contacts converts best.

I disagree with Scrivs:

but not too often is offline marketing more important than online marketing

I think for those not knowledgeable online marketing can seem easy, and less-expensive. And for this reason a majority people try to do it, spending a great deal of effort on practices that are ineffective. But, many times, the opposite is true. Online marketing takes careful planning, selection, and work.

Offline marketing is always important for any site. Offline marketing is much more personal, even if you have a blog with a picture and information about your dog, your favorite foods, and your 85 year old grandmother. I agree that the extent to which this must be done varies for each site.

I went to Bang music festival in miami recently and beatport.com was there advertising their new site. They were handing out lanyards that were cleverly shaped like VIP passes with a personal ID that gave you special access to their new site. I didn't sign up, but I definitely checked them out, and a lot of my friends are now members. The lanyards and heavy plastic cards were probably very expensive and there were probably thousands given out, but I know at least 10 people that now frequent the site and are paying members.

Finally karmatosed said it well:

Knowing your market is also the key analysis part of this.

Just a couple things to add:

• Develop a link-building strategy
• You have quite a bit of JScript, which isn't SEO-friendly
• Design for Accessibility, Usability, and try and use Web-Standards
• Try and develop/design a better interface so you don't have to scroll so far down the page
• Use your web analytics feedback, user-input, and write content that your readers want and can find easily
• Architect your site by Section

Let robots and crawlers index your site. Looking at your meta information, it doesn't seem like you're letting the robots="follow" your content nor links?

Keep reading, learning and everything will fall into place. Good luck!

It's all about your market. For many companies, online marketing is secondary and they're doing just fine. If you are a web designer, either can work. You can make a big business by doing offline marketing and make a big business by doing online marketing. One of the nice advantages to offline marketing in most areas is that there is usually fewer competitors.

The best type of marketing is the marketing that's free. Having friends, family, colleagues, etc. refer you and visit your web site as a result of hearing that positive feedback is terrific. Working on improving your word of mouth marketing is probably one of the best ways you can spend your time.

I've found that writing articles for niche publications (online or offline) is highly effective. Many of these guys are dying for good content. The tough part is setting aside the time to write!

I don't think there is a "right" answer for that. It depends on what is being marketed, particularly if the end result is sales vs. traffic.

Any suggustion how I can improve on my website? In a sense build more real traffic to my site

Ok, since you asked. :) I visited your site and I felt like your content was being pushed at me...forced on me. Here is an example:

If you are new to this blog would want to subscribe to our feed here or grab our FREE blogging traffic book or you can check out the blogging tips here & past interviews here that we have done with many experts all FREE for exclusive readers of GatherSuccess. Subscribe our feed today to get FREE updates

By that point (the 2nd paragraph of the site) I did not want to see anything about subscribing to your site again. I did not have to scroll far before I was presented with:

Get FREE Stuff Today For Subscribing With Us!

And more subscribe links. Scroll a bit more and there are more prompts to subscribe. The reader is present with a small amount of quality content (ie: reason TO subscribe) within the times numerous times being asked to subscribe and could easily have a negative impression. You ask for an email address to subscribe 5 or 6 times on the front page, not including the requests to subscribe to the RSS feed. That's a lot. :)

I don't believe that one channel is more important than another one, it's all about your marketing mix. Knowing where your target audience spends the most time and finding communication vehicles that allow you to be in front of them in those places. This could be any combination of on and off line marketing channels.

I find that the most successful products and campaigns are able to integrate between their channels of communication so that they are able to more effectively saturate their target markets with valuable and motivating messaging.

that's how you generate interest, traffic, and most important of all sales...

Nelson Design Studios

I think thwe original question posted here is the million dollar question at the moment. zkatkin I completely agree with your comments.

Adam
yourmediaplan.com