Offline Marketing for Your Blog

[Maw Books]

As the book festival season is upon us, I thought it would be fun to discuss how you market your blog offline.

Do you have an elevator pitch?
Business cards? How do you pass them out? What do they say?
Do you post flyers at local bookstores, libraries, etc?
Do you network with your IRL community?
How do you approach authors, publishers, publicists and introduce them to your blog without it sounding like it's "Hey, check out my blog!"

Ideas? Advice?

[Beth Fish]

Thanks, Shelly. I really like how they turned out.

[Lorin Laiacona Salem]

That's a lovely card!

[Bart]

Not sure when I'm going to get to use them, but I just received these in the post yesterday!

They're double-sided with the contact info being on the reverse. (I used moo.com to do them, and they're great quality)

[Maw Books]

Those look great Bart! Very classy. I like the whole idea of "half" cards from moo. I think that they stand out.

[Bart]

Thanks! I've used Moo before and always been impressed with the quality, and I think the unique size adds a touch of fun to them.

And I also got a great little keyring holder thingy that holds a dozen or so of them, which is useful :o)

(If anyone is interested I also got a couple of discount codes with them (15-20%) I'm happy to pass on if you want to use them - I've only got a couple so please only ask if you are truly interested!)

[t. olmsted]

Those are great cards! Love the design.

[drey]

Wow, y'all... I'm so very impressed! I barely have an avatar - it's just my mug... Hmm, maybe it's time for a design change?

[Emily Ellsworth]

I think that checking with your library is a great idea! I'm totally going to do that. And, maybe I'll start thinking about designing a business card or something.

[Yvette Kelly]

These are such good ideas!! I have been thinking about it since I went to a restaurant and starting talking about my blog to a complete stranger and when he told me he worked with the police ?(I blog about true crime) I got so excited that I virtually shouted "Give me your number" and immediately turned red when everyone turned to look at me and thought I was hitting on the poor man.Now if I had had business cards I would have gently and quietly handed them over.

[t. olmsted]

Sheesh, those are obnoxiously big! I'm sorry!... I'm not all that computer literate so I've not idea how to fix that. Those are the front and back of my bookmarks. I was planning to give them out at a Book Festival I'm going to in September... but again they don't have my name and contact info. But I do have a contact window with my email listed in my blog, do you think that will be enough or do I need business cards? Advice would be very much appreciated.