I've been lurking on these forums for years and decided I should probably share a few methods I know will work. There have been way too many low quality, scam, and "help me" related threads recently so hopefully this can help a few people.

Also, it should be noted I twisted a few of my methods to specifically work with Zeek Rewards, a program I find to be 100% legitimate and profitable. This company does everything it can to be legally compliant and has gone so far as to hire a legal team to make sure affiliates do not do anything wrong either. They gave affiliates tax forms for the last year and have not had anyone complain about payments. Despite all this, I know others do not feel the same way. I'm not going to try to prove the legitimacy of this company.

They are the only penny auction site I feel even remotely has a chance. I've heard tons of times about late payments or non-payment from other sites. This site does not have that problem. You get a simple 20% commission on every sale as well as points equal to the amount they buy which you earn on from their retail profit pool. Either way this thread is not about Zeek Rewards, but is about the methods.

BigBuddy has already given me the ok to post this as long as my affiliate links also have non affiliate links next to them. Anyone who seeks more information can see my links at the bottom or ask me for information.

------

At first, I was going to just share one method, but I've decided to share a few that are all related to each other. These will all work as I have made money using them in the past. These can all be twisted to work with other offers and programs. Most can be easily implemented, but some do cost money.


Now I know many people completely disregard offline advertising. I mean you can get thousands of hits online, but does that mean offline advertising is dead? Hell no. Thousands of people make a living from the offline world, and it all comes down to adaptation. Doing the same old thing over and over again doesn't work.

A little breakdown of my own advertising philosophy comes down to these few things.
1. Your target market. You need to know who they are and what they want. General broad advertising is great, but if you want the best bang for your buck targeting is everything.
2. Attention. People are so desensitized to advertising nowadays it is almost impossible to really grab someone's attention. This is true for online and offline advertising. Whether it Craigslist or TV you need to change the game if you want to succeed.
3. Emotion and needs. This is something I see messed up daily. Either an ad doesn't target a specific emotion, or it does it poorly. Advertising needs to evoke an emotional response so the person viewing it wants it. This needs to be done quickly.
4. Timing. Whether it is missing an opportunity to generate because you aren't prepared, or advertising at the wrong time, people mess this up constantly. Timing truly is everything.
5. Simplicity. Another simple concept, but so vastly underutilized. I see flyers and ads everyday with too much information. If you are trying to close a sale you don't keep on spouting statistics(even though I see this messed up a lot too). When it comes to offline advertising simplicity is key.



Method 1: The Card Drop
This method utilizes a very simple approach to advertising: Business Cards. I get tons of different business cards from people daily, and often you can tell a lot about them from their card. The can be cluttered with information or creatively unique.

Although, this isn't about advertising yourself, it's about driving traffic.
A great site I use is GotPrint. You can get 5000 color premium cards for about 26 dollars+shipping. Also, you can always go to local small business printers and see their deals. Often they are willing to discount first time buyers, especially on large orders.

Now what I do is put a simple phrase on the card that plays on an emotion and a need. "Are you tired of saving only 10% of retail prices? How does 50-90% off sound?" "Hate driving to the store only to realize they don't have something in stock?" "Did you know you can get new electronics, jewelry , gift cards, and even cash for 90% off?" "Bored at work? Have some fun while saving 90% off great merchandise."

The point is you need to play off of some emotion. Anger, greed, or whatever else you can think of.

The next thing you should do is place a link. You can use link shorteners or trackers to see how well you are doing as well. You also want to put a QR code on the card. You can find lots of free QR code generators online. The smalles you want to shrink a code down is about 1.25 × 1.25 inches. Remember that the more text is in your link, the denser the code will be.

This will spark curiosity in people. Either they know what it is and scan it or they don't know what it is, but look up your link anyways. Now this is just me, but I prefer bright colors. Yellow, orange, and pink are great. Easy to spot and you get their attention quickly.

Also, keep in mind what you are going to direct them to. You can either use the www.zeekler.com site , the splash pages provide by the company or a video page which I use provide by yougetpaidtoadvertise.com
Here is what they see when they use my cards.
http://www.got20seconds.com/smallgiant/Cst.aspx


Hopefully by now you have a nice bright card with a simple layout, a good catch phrase, a link, a QR code, and maybe a small graphic.

This is where business cards come in handy. For one you can always carry them with you easily so if a good opportunity presents itself you have them at easy access. Also, they will allow you to do guerrilla advertising in places where you might not usually be able to advertise.

Now it all comes down to targeting and timing. Obviously, you want shoppers, spenders, college students, workers, gamblers, and whoever else would be interested in a penny auction site.

Leave them at tables in the food court of your local mall. Put them near chairs and places people are sitting. Put them in classrooms at college campuses. Put them outside of doors(never put stuff in someone's mailbox). Malls are great places to leave these. Drop a few near local business offices. Stick a couple near elevator buttons. The things you can do with these are limitless.

Something I like to do since I have easy access to a few large university campuses, and have some younger friends still in school, is actually tape them to chairs in lecture halls. If you know you have a window of time before another class starts, this can be a great marketing tactic. This is especially great if the lecture hall has the chairs which need to be pushed down to sit in, like movie theaters. Instantly you have their attention, and who better to advertise to than a bored college student.


Remember this is different than online advertising. Your goal here is not to get as many views as possible. It is more about getting actual people paying attention to what you have to say. Your objective should be to get one person to one card and actually read it entirely out of curiosity. Also, don't just drop a bunch everywhere. You always want to leave one per table/seat/general area, just so it grabs attention from one person. You can always sit around too, and watch people physically do this. Good way to monitor your success. Good luck with this method. Remember to always twist and scale to your needs!

--

Method 2: Newspaper Storming- Classifieds and Large Ads
This is actually 2 sub-methods combined into one bigger method. Both of these methods are also a little more blackhat than the first. When it comes to newspapers and other print ads there are basically two types of advertising. Classifieds and the larger banner ads in the paper. Clearly getting your ad into a paper will both cost money and difficult to do, but it can be done. People often stray away from this and go for Craigslist because it's free and easy. I personally feel that Craigslist is pretty tapped now, and most people on there are generally distrustful. Newspapers are a different story.

Part 1
This first part will cover the actual ads, and not classifieds.
Now when it comes to newspapers you need to consider a few thing. The market reach, the price, and the ease with which you can post an ad.
I try and advertise in about 5 surrounding medium sized newspapers. The largest of which goes out to 50,000 homes. I stay away from very large newspapers and cities. Also, college newspapers are great as well. They have a general lack of hard rules that city newspapers have.

Now most papers want you to be a local business, but if you can convince the person you talk to, that you are a service for local people they will usually let you in. Like I said earlier, college ones will definitely let you advertise quite easily. As long as you pay, you are golden. However, try hard not to make it seem like a general CPA/affilate offer. If you can advertise using your own domain that redirects then that would be the best possible choice. Also, QR codes work well in newspapers too!

Remember all it usually takes is a phone call to convince the advertising/classifieds editor that you are a legitimate person. This is easier if you aren't trying to use fake information as well. Simply explain what you are offering, and tell them you are a legitimate worker trying to advertise for a site.

Now whether you want to use real information here is a decision you should make early. Some will go with using their real information because they aren't advertising anything illegal and are just paying for a service. Others will decide to use fake information just to protect themselves. Either is fine. However, you must know that you will speak to someone. Don't expect to do this over the computer. You need to call in and talk to someone or wait until they call you. That means you have to have information that at least appears legitimate.
General rules for this would be to use a fake name, fake address(make sure it is a real address though), and fake number/email. Also, use a prepaid visa/mastercard. Something I have done in the past is used a Google voice number that reroutes to my actual cell phone.

*Side note. Google voice is awesome.

Most good papers have somewhat cheap advertising, and all you do is pay a flat fee to get a few days of exposure. Depending on location and size of your ad, you could pay $50 to $400 for a decent ad. While more expensive, you need to remember newspaper readers are generally more trusting of the content in the paper.


Part 2

The next part is more about classifieds within papers. With this you still get great exposure, but pay a lot less or nothing. You might be thinking, "How can I advertise in the classifieds though?". Well you aren't directly advertising.

Now most papers have a general/free/$100 or less section. Most people don't know it is either free or next to nothing to advertise here. However, they aren't going to let you advertise your site here. What do you do? I make up something I am giving away for free. Generally you want it to be something decent, but not too expensive. It also needs to make sense as to why you are getting rid of it. Things I've "given" away are working TVs(with cosmetic frame damage), Old Ipads(that only hold a charge for an hour), and desktop computers(that are 2 years old).

Of course I don't have any of these things, but they don't know that. Now in one of my papers, you can get 4 days in the paper and 4 days in online classifieds on their website. Guess how much it costs? Nothing. Granted the first time I did this it was a bit difficult to get my ad in, but after that it became like clockwork.

The trick is to convince the paper you really just want to help someone out, and to convince the people that reply you've already helped someone else out. Now I don't feel bad about this at all because I'm still giving them something for free. It costs them nothing, and if they decide to buy something great!

When someone contacts you either by phone or email, simply say that you've already given it away to a needy family/after school program/whatever. Then go on to say how you work for a company..."Look I'm really sorry, but I already promised it to another family. I tell you what, I work for a penny auction site called zeekler. They are just now becoming very popular and have some great deals. "Let me hook you up with some free bids that are worth $XXX(depends how much you give them)". "You can try it out completely free and don't need to put in a credit card unless you decide to pay for bids or a product".

With this you should be able to generate quite a bit of leads and conversions easily. These people are already giving you their attention, and what's better is that they want something from you. All you need to do is meet their expectations.


Method 3: Flyering, Craigslist, and College Outsourcing

Ok, sadly I have to take a short leave, but I wanted to get this posted. Hopefully, I can add method 3 later.


Here are some links for those interested as well.
This is the site I drive customers to for penny auctions.
http://smallgiant.zeekler.com <-Referral link
http://www.zeekler.com <-Non-Referral link

Affiliate program.
http://smallgiant.zeekrewards.com <-Referral link
http://www.zeekrewards.com <-Non referral link

Here is a 30 minute video explaining the program.
Video

P.S. Does anyone know how long you can edit a post for? I know it won't let you edit after a certain point.

i did not read all ... but here everything is about online and making money online.

dropping some spamy business cards somewhere is not in my mind of a internet marketer at all ... but i can be wrong and others are interested in this.

Originally Posted by abrigado

i did not read all ... but here everything is about online and making money online.

dropping some spamy business cards somewhere is not in my mind of a internet marketer at all ... but i can be wrong and others are interested in this.

You're wrong, on two accounts.

One BHW is not all about earning online, hence a variety of threads on Offline Marketing. Secondly, this method is 'online marketing' (You'd know if you read it), the only offline part of this is how he drives traffic, but in the end he drives traffic to an affiliate site (about as online as it gets).

That being said, OP thanks for share, I'm sure it'll help some people out, and then you'll also have the ones who are ungrateful .

had a nice try with qr codes myself
thanks for the share, interesting idea

Originally Posted by abrigado

i did not read all ... but here everything is about online and making money online.

You are wrong. Why the fuck did you even comment? Don't shit on people for sharing knowledge, when you don't contribute a damn thing.

OP. Look forward to your newspaper method. I'm trying to get into that.

Sorry you feel that way, maybe you should read it next time. I'm ust trying to provide some good methods for people. Most people who say what you've said have probably never attempted offline marketing, and just don't understand it.

I actually wasn't sure where to post this, but BigBuddy told me to put it in "making money". However, in context he may have meant the main thread, and not sub-thread. Oh well, I think it still applies.



Either way I've added method 2 now, and hope some people can get some use out of these. I know they have worked for me in the past. Using a combination of method #1 and a twist I used, I turned about $45 and some time, into $3000.

Everyone else, thanks for the feedback!

Originally Posted by abrigado

i did not read all ... but here everything is about online and making money online.

dropping some spamy business cards somewhere is not in my mind of a internet marketer at all ... but i can be wrong and others are interested in this.

TL;DR version ?

Originally Posted by IamNRE

TL;DR version ?

Seriously...
It's an explanation of methods. Didn't realize people just want bs, no content threads nowadays. Jeeze.

Originally Posted by smallgiant

Seriously...
It's an explanation of methods. Didn't realize people just want bs, no content threads nowadays. Jeeze.

Dude all I asked for was a short summary to see if its something new or if its something rehashed/reworded.

Jeeze us - If you dont want to then dont.

Sorry I asked.

Guys, smallgiant referred me to ZR and has been a huge help so far. I feel ZeekRewards is a very good opportunity for anyone starting out, or heavily experienced IMers.

Go ahead and give it a try.

You won't be upset.

This biz card drop tactic was first done by the 'we buy houses' guys; I know because I was one of them who dropped a ton of cards in Lowe's and Home Depot and hardware stores far-afield. Did they work? No.

INHO this poster is sharing something he read and mentally bought into but has probably never done - I doubt he ever bought and paid $$$$$ for part-timer hires to drop thousands of folded-$100 bills-biz cards. Do you?

Originally Posted by abrigado

i did not read all ... but here everything is about online and making money online.

dropping some spamy business cards somewhere is not in my mind of a internet marketer at all ... but i can be wrong and others are interested in this.

Sorry Iamnre I was more upset at the first poster than you. Short version is that I advertise for a penny auction site through a great affiliate program. These are both my own methods, but I'm sure they borrow from other ideas and methods. Honestly, I've read so much over the last few years its hard to know what is original and what I twisted. Anyways I'm sorry and hope I didn't offend you. I'm a big enough man to admit when I'm wrong.

Originally Posted by Madi al Dajjal

This biz card drop tactic was first done by the 'we buy houses' guys; I know because I was one of them who dropped a ton of cards in Lowe's and Home Depot and hardware stores far-afield. Did they work? No.

INHO this poster is sharing something he read and mentally bought into but has probably never done - I doubt he ever bought and paid $$$$$ for part-timer hires to drop thousands of folded-$100 bills-biz cards. Do you?

To be completely honest I've never heard of the "we buy houses" guys. After a g search I can see the similarities though. I can also see why that would not work. The person picking it up would only be pissed off that it wasn't real. I've actually seen one of those fake hundreds left as a tip at a restaurant. All it had was a Jesus message inside.

I also already explained I've done this myself and know it works. Never paid part timers to do something I can do. Its at max a $40 investment and can generate thousands.

This guy is just great. I asked him about this a long time ago and he let me in on his secret and helped me get started with the whole Zeekler rewards system. I haven't started with any advertising as of yet, but right now I'm earning about 50 cents a day, with no referrals for doing nothing.

I'm busy focusing on other things but when I start focusing on this its a great way to get some passive income. I am a college student so I will be dropping cards around there at the start of my semester.

Big thumbs up to smallgiant, he is a great guy and if you are having any doubts or questions about this just hit him up and he'll get back to you really quickly

Thank you, smallgiant. The people dumping on you for sharing information are probably just mad that they're not successful online. I appreciate anyone who shares what they know. If I can use the info, great. If not, I move on. People just seem to be in bad spirits these days.