Ways to Promote Your City.com Web Site — 5 Offline

Drive traffic to your geo domain web site.

I’ve been researching offline promotion methods as I prepare to launch my Lakeway geo web site. Here are the ideas I’ve come up with so far:

1. Sports team sponsorship. Lakeway has one high school, and the city rallies around its sports teams. I’m working to get football stadium signage, program advertising, etc.

2. Billboards. If you want to make a big splash and get noticed, consider renting a billboard for a couple months. In some cities prices are depressed right now; if you find an empty billboard you can probably bargain. It looks like I’ll have to pay $2,000-$5,000 a month in the area I’m focusing on.

3. Chamber of commerce sponsorship. Talk to the local chamber of commerce regarding sponsoring an event or mixer. This will also give you a way to meet potential advertisers.

4. National Public Radio. If you listen to NPR then you’re familiar with its short “sponsorship” blurbs during shows such as All Things Considered. I’m looking into pricing right now but I believe it’s reasonable assuming you want to target an entire metro are.

5. Grassroots marketing. T-shirts, bumper stickers, flyers at community events, etc.

6. (Bonus) Business cards. Get business cards printed that include your city domain name and logo. Tack them up on notice boards, include them in the credit card folder following paying for meals at restaurants, etc.

The challenge, of course, is it’s harder to monitor offline advertising results than online advertising.

Anyone have other ideas that have worked?