No, not browser bookmarks, physical bookmarks. You know, the strips of paper you use to mark your place in a book? Here’s the idea:
You print-up some bookmarks branded with your site’s logo and domain name. (You can do this yourself with an inkjet printer and some card stock.) Make them funny/interesting/cool-looking, and put a prominent logo and URL on it.
Now, go to your local bookstores and public libraries, bringing a large stack of the ‘marks. Go through and find some books on the topic of your blog, and put the bookmarks inside the books, like you were reading the book and marked the spot. Now the next person to come along and check the book out, or purchase it in the case of a bookstore, will notice the free bookmark (people like free stuff) and possibly visit your site.
How is this targeted? You put the bookmarks in books that fit your blog’s topic, especially books you’ve read and recommend. It’s cheap, it’s unobtrusive, and it works pretty good.
I’ve mainly done this with business cards, though bookmarks work even better, as people are more likely to keep them, and reuse them while reading other books. In one such case, I put cards in all of the library’s copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince before the seventh and final Harry Potter book was released, advertising an HP site with a big “Prepare for the final book” legend, the card’s background being the upcoming book’s cover art. I’d planned to do bookmarks, but didn’t have the time to print them up.
Photo by austinevan.
