Offline marketing doesn't work.

Only joking

I see a lot of people saying that they tried offline marketing and it didn't work, and most of the time, these are the exact same people who would fail online because they fail to follow some basic fundamentals and are lazy (don't worry, I'm talking from experience, I've been there - not just having a dig).

This is nothing that hasn't been written before but I feel it should be mentioned. It is specially applicable to offline flyer CPA marketing.

One of the most important things that people don't bother doing is EXTENSIVE TESTING. Just printing out a batch of flyers with a redirect to a random affiliate program is rarely profitable and if it is, probably not making you as much as it should.

The thing that puts people off testing is that it generally takes time and money, which are both precious resources that not everyone has in abundance.

I haven't been doing CPA all that long, but in the time I have, I've seen a HUGE difference in conversions/revenue just by split testing various offers/landing pages/networks. Some networks shave more than others, some offers are just crap and others convert on the 1034th page. We want to weed these out

So, if I wanted to deliver 10k flyers promoting an offer here's a rough plan I would follow:

Get 5 flyers designed. You can get these done on fiverr so it will cost you 25 bucks.

Find 5 (at least) offers that you want to promote (I usually test more, but this is a start).

Buy a .com domain (yes, I know you want to save 10 bucks and get a .info, but don't).

Setup some sort of rotator script on the domain so each offer will be rotated (either iframed or redirected) so you get an equal amount of traffic to each offer.

I'm not going to go into all the technical aspects of this as

a) my partner is the clever one
b) it will take too long

Upload each flyer to a domain (buy another .com for this) so it acts as a landing page (again you can rotate them).

Now just run some cheap PPC at the flyer landing page. The idea of this is to:

a) find out which flyer/landing page converts best
b) find out what offer converts best/pays the most

You might lose money on the PPC, but that's not a problem and is not the object. You'll probably find that the best offer/LP will convert 10x better than the worst.

Testing almost always costs money as some stuff just won't convert at all. Imagine if you picked that offer/LP and wasted all your effort actually printing off flyers. No wonder you would think offline doesn't work.

So moral of the story: test your flyers and test your offers BEFORE going to market. It's cheaper to test with PPC than with your flyers, plus it's quicker. If you don't test, you're not going to make it big. If you do test, and find the right offer, you can absolutely CRUSH it. Also, never give up. Keep trying.

Good luck

Just joined up to your network (or whoevers it is) Just trying to get in one to get my foot out the door on offline CPA.

Completely agree -> Test and measure before picking the best and most effective campaign.

A book I highly recommend is "Tested Advertising Methods" by John Caples. You'll learn alot on what advertising works best.

Make sure it's not the 5th edition - if it has Revised by Fred E. Hahn. you have a version that has been completely gutted.

The the 4th edition, it has a picture of Caples at his desk on the front of the book. That one and the previous editions were written by Caples himself before he passed away.

If I may jump in fellow BHW members I think one huge important factor that a lot of folks who've failed at Offline Marketing miss is the ability to CLOSE the deal. There are people who can't sell let alone close the deal. Offline Marketing is not for everyone and those who are not good at selling or closing the deal should strongly consider hiring some outside sales folks on a commission only basis if you can find them in your neck of the wood. If you offer them a 50/50 split at the beginning they will sell their asses off for you. There are sales people out of work right now that will take the standard 25% sales commission because times are tough for them. You can offer bonuses on top of that.

I offer a 20% referral commission and then on top of that bonuses for deals that are over $5K. You would be amazed how many evangelists you could end up with when you're paying $600 to $700 on a $3,500 deal. If these evangelists get you two to three deals a month they're making pretty good money.

Hope that helps.