Let’s Be Active Offline for Your eCom! Offline Event Report

For your cross border eCommerce, are you only active online? “Offline Marketing” refers to any and all marketing activities not online. However, recently the term has come to be often used to describe offline activities for boosting online activities. (Offline to Online, O2O) Although every ad you see online is becoming more and more personalized day by day, the things you actually touch, feel, taste or smell in your everyday life leave a lot more impact on you, right?

Offline Marketing x Cross Border eCommerce

If you’re in America, you can easily throw some offline events within the States. But what about in Japan? Especially if you don’t have a physical store or office in Japan, you might be thinking of only online marketing to further your cross-border e-commerce. But, you can host offline events in Japan (or other countries) too, and you should! If your products are high quality and expensive price, letting people try it out may be the best way to promote them.

But, how to implement“Offline to Online(O2O)”？

So, Let’s think about the path from offline events to online activity. Product Sampling Often there’s a better chance for customers to buy your products if they actually try them out. That’s why giving out free samples is worth trying. Don’t just give them away, though. The important thing about O2O is to make sure customers will reach out to your online store or social media platforms. For example, you can ask them to subscribe to your email magazine, sign up for your online store through a QR code, or follow your Instagram account in return for free samples. If you throw a sampling event, you should carefully choose the place where potential customers would be gathering. Giving coupons/promo codes How about giving coupons or promo codes for your online store at offline events? For example, you could have a product booth at an event promoting your products; at the same time, ask people to follow & tag your Instagram account, and then give them a promo code. While they will reach out to your online store, they will promote your social media by featuring it on their own. If you do offline campaigns like this, the event size doesn’t matter - only the rate of potential customers there does.

What would be the “obstacles” to ONO?

“Okay, let's throw an offline event in Japan!” “Okay, let’s throw an offline event in Japan!” Great that you said so! But, you might face some obstacles to overcome, especially when you don’t have a company, branch, or a physical store in Japan. Concerns could include;

• communication with people in Japan
• preparing before the event in detail
• confirming all the event rules or local laws

GO RIDE is based in Los Angeles, CA and Yokohama, Japan. That’s why we can support your event whether you’re in the US or Japan.

Previous Projects

GO RIDE’s thrown some offline events with our clients and we’d like to share a few with you!

Popup @ Night Nation Run 2019 in LA

With our client Tabio USA, we had a Tabio booth at Night Nation Run 2019 in Los Angeles and promoted their products. Night Nation Run is, as you may know, one of the biggest running music events in the world. GO RIDE visited this event in LA this summer and had a socks booth like the photo on the right! What we did at this time was

1. Asked people to follow Tabio USA’s Instagram account
2. Post an Instagram story or on their feed tagging @tabio.usa
3. After posting on Instagram, participants could play the spin to win made by GO RIDE and get a promo code from

At this event, we could meet a lot of running lovers and tell them all about Tabio socks.

Popup events ＠Wework in LA

GO RIDE and Tabio USA also worked together on d popup events at a few WeWork locations in Los Angeles. At these WeWork popups, we did a “Give One Get One” campaign. If you donate one pair of socks (even used socks) and subscribe to Tabio’s email magazine, you can get a new pair of Tabio socks for free. This event idea comes from Tabio USA’s activities for KKGS (Knock Knock Giving a Sock), donating a pair of socks with every pair of Tabio socks sold in the US. GO RIDE hosted this “Give One Get One” event at 3 different WeWork locations in LA in collaboration with Tabio USA. The participants were happy and having fun since they were actually doing a good deed, donating socks, while receiving a free pair of Tabio socks themselves. And even better, we got 200 new subscribers to Tabio’s email magazine in the 3 days we hosted these offline events! That’s a wrap of this offline marketing article! Offline events are effective to boost your online activities and, most importantly, they’re fun! Let’s start something offline for your cross border e-Commerce and get to know your customers more!

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