OFFLINE GOLDRUSH: RED-HOT or just a MIRAGE? Reality check.

I'm not really involved in offline thing but I still managed to do a few offline projects for some businesses.

Seeing all this craze in this offline and WSO section about offliners selling the "how to make a killing with local businesses" makes me wonder whether this opportunity is a real gold or it's just selling hype to make it look like one.


In my personal experience I did not find that a few biz owners I talked to are crazy about that "online thing".

Many do not even understand why they need google, adwords, mobile, etc, if the business is going well without this stuff.

Some others would not mind to have a "webpage" or "something but they do not want to pay for it.

Since I do not do this often I can't really approve or disapprove what is going on but despite of believing that its an good opportunity I still had some doubts about this "offline" thing being on high demand .



We all know that in order to make money you have to sell what people want to buy. Right?

So is it a really that thing people (biz owners) want to buy badly?




But what was a bit a shocking for me is the story I learned recently from a guy I know.


Here is the story as he told me.



-- STORY START--

I started getting into offline marketing at the end of 2011. Got quite a few courses on that stuff. All proposed different approach how to find the clients.

The bottom line was is to find those who already understand the Internet. The other thing was to look for business who currently advertise (YP, papers, flyers, etc.).

I ran two tests.

Test #1.

My approach was is to get to YP's popular biz niches and collect biz info from there.

The thinking was that the first thing any business would do is to get listed in YP by tradition. So YP must have the most of any other biz listings. That, obviously, would include those who advertises somewhere else.

I started from Canada. So I collected biz info. Total was about 6,000 contacts.

I sent e-mails to all those contacts just playing the number game as we all know it.

Each e-mail was individualized with business Name, address, and website so it, obviously, was not looking like mass emailing.


Nothing in the e-mail offered to buy anything.



The e-mail consisted from three parts.

First part was an invitation for the interview if a business was marketing online.

The second part of the e-mail was a brief report about biz website issues with the offer to provide a more detailed free report.

The third part of the e-mail was a no-obligation offer for a free $100 Google adwords voucher as a gift for reading the e-mail.

So each part of the e-mail could produce some leads be it an an interview, or a report or a voucher.

Result of this 6,000 biz emailing campaign:

- 2 phone calls with an hour spend on each with no further action from biz owners.

- 5 responses for the interview from those who do not have any interest in marketing online

- 15 responses for a free report. Non of them ever came back despite a few follow ups

- 1 request for adwords voucher ( to do it by themselves).

Final result: 0 clients.



Test #2.

Second test was conducted by using local online popular classifieds site.

I was running an ad for requesting contractor for a home renovation project. Of course, I got over 800 responses from local contractors.

What I did is I setup an autoresponder and each contractor would get it after replying the ad.

In the autoresponder message along with the renovation project details I set up an advertisement offering those contractors to find more clients for them online for free.

Result: 0 ( zero) interest. No one took on the offer.




My general conclusion is:

- If I was doing something wrong but in "boom" times (if it's real boom) when the services are really-really HOT indeed even a bad offer will bring some business. it's a well known fact.

-while there is a market for those services and obviously, some marketers are making money with it the market is not really big and, of course, it is not hot at all. Otherwise, you would not have to push the envelope so hard just to land one client.

- Despite of "millions of businesses out there" only minority of businesses in any niche are going for online services. That is demand is very limited. Just look at any niche advertising on Google adwords in your city and you will see only handful businesses there while there are hundreds of businesses in the area in that niche. Despite Google pushing hard by giving away adwords vouchers.

- With all that offline craze when every Joe and his brother is trying to get in to this offline gold rush the supply of such services is very high. Due to high supply and low demand the value of such services is down. The value is down and it is hard to make good money in it (until the supply will decrease and demand will increase).


- The value of those "make money offline" courses is close to 0 because I truly believe that 99.9% of those authors have not made a dime in real offline world. It's all based on just speculation and theory or, possibly, a single incident of getting a client without a proven long term record.


I may stick around offline for a little bit more before I get completely back to my "old online routine" but now I become a more believer that majority of those who is trying to get in "offline" has never succeeded in "online".

That is where I remember a phrase by a 90s famous direct marketing guy Brad Richdale that the only reason people become business consultants is because they are not capable to run their own business.


--- STORY END ----



the point of the story is that offline gold is not that shiny as many say.

So what you think of this? Anybody who, actually, know for sure from the real experience wants to prove otherwise without trying to sell the stuff? Is offline consulting a really HOT stuff?




Thanks