Free and paid internet advertising strategies

If you want to grow your business more rapidly, there comes a point when you need to explore all the avenues. After optimising your site, you need to entice visitors by promoting your website with free and paid internet advertising strategies.

Contents:

Miscellaneous Web Marketing Strategies.

Free Internet Advertising Strategies

1. Promote Your Site in Mailing Lists and News Groups.

2. Announce a Contest.

3. Ask Visitors to Bookmark your Site.

4. Exchange Ads with Complementary Businesses.

5. Devise Viral Marketing Promotion Techniques.

Paid Internet Advertising Strategies

1. Buy a Text Ad in an E-Mail Newsletter.

2. Begin an Affiliate Program.

3. Purchase Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads.

A. Andrew Goodman's Top Ten Tips for PPC

4. List Your Products with Shopping Comparison Bots and Auction Sites.

Free Internet Advertising Strategies

1. Promote Your Site in Mailing Lists and News Groups

The Internet offers thousands of very targeted e-mail based discussion lists and Usenet news groups made up of people with very specialized interests. Use Google Groups to find appropriate sources. Don't bother with news groups consisting of pure "spam." Instead, find groups where a dialog is taking place. Don't use aggressive marketing and overtly plug your product or service. Rather, add to the discussion in a helpful way and let the "signature" at the end of your e-mail message do your marketing for you. People will gradually get to know and trust you, visit your site, and do business with you.

2. Announce a Contest.

People like getting something free. If you publicize a contest or drawing available on your site, you'll generate more traffic than normal. Make sure your sweepstakes rules are legal in all states and countries you are targeting. Prizes should be designed to attract individuals who fit a demographic profile describing your best customers.

3. Ask Visitors to Bookmark your Site.

It seems so simple, but make sure you ask visitors to bookmark your site. We use a graphic on the main entry page to our site. Hey, why don't you bookmark the article you're reading right now? You know you'll want to find it again soon.

4. Exchange Ads with Complementary Businesses.

Banner exchange programs don't work well these days. But consider exchanging e-mail newsletter ads with complementary businesses to reach new audiences.

5. Devise Viral Marketing Promotion Techniques.

So-called viral marketing uses the communication networks (and preferably the resources) of your site visitors or customers to spread the word about your site exponentially. Word-of-mouth, PR, creating "buzz," and network marketing are offline models. The classic example is the free e-mail service, hotmail.com that includes a Tag Line about their service at the end of every message sent out, so friends tell friends, who tell friends.

Paid Internet Advertising Strategies

None of the approaches described above is "free," since each takes time and energy. But if you want to grow your business more rapidly, there comes a point when you need to pay for increased traffic.

Advertising is sold in one of three ways:

(1) traditional CPM (cost per thousand views)

(2) pay per click (PPC)

(3) pay per action, otherwise known as an affiliate program or lead generation program

Do some small tests first to determine response, and then calculate your return on investment (ROI) before spending large amounts. Here are some methods.

Paid Advertising Strategies

1. Buy a Text Ad in an E-Mail Newsletter.

Some of the best buys are small text ads in e-mail newsletters targeted at audiences likely to be interested in your products or services. Many small publishers aren't sophisticated about advertising and offer attractive rates. Banner ads get such a low click-through rate (0.2%) these days that I don't recommend paying much for them. Banner ads typically cost about 50¢ to $1 per thousand page views.

2. Begin an Affiliate Program.

Essentially, a retailer's affiliate program pays a commission to other sites whose links to the retailer result in an actual sale. The goal is to build a network of affiliates who have a financial stake in promoting your site.

If you're a merchant you, need to

(1) determine the commission you are willing to pay (consider it your advertising cost)

(2) select a company to set up the technical details of your program

(3) promote your program to get the right kind of affiliates who will link to your site

Consider affiliate management software such as My Affiliate Program or Ultimate Affiliate Program.

3. Purchase Pay Per Click (PPC) Ads

Just look at Sponsored Matches (Sponsor Results) on Yahoo-Overture-Inktomi- Altavista and
Sponsored Links on Google. The top ads appear as featured links at the top (and at the bottom) of search engine results for your keywords in many search engines. Your ranking is determined by how much you've bid for a particular search word compared to other businesses. This can be a cost-effective way to get targeted traffic, since you only pay when someone actually clicks on the link. Lower cost PPC systems include FindWhat and Kandoodle.

An excellent e-book on PPC strategies is Andrew Goodman's 21 Ways to Maximize Profits on Google AdWords Select (Page Zero). Following an extract of content of his book.\

For more detailed information about Pay Per Click (PPC) see: Pay Per Click Strategies PPC

4. List Your Products with Shopping Comparison Bots and Auction Sites.

Shopping bots compare your products and prices to others. Google's new Froogle is currently free. Some work on a PPC basis: mySimon, BizRate, PriceGrabber , and DealTime.

Others expect a commission on the sale and sometimes a listing fee, especially sales systems that host the merchant. These include eBay, Yahoo! Shopping Auctions, Amazon zShops, Marketplace, and Auctions, and Yahoo! Shopping. You pay to acquire first-time customers, but hopefully you can sell to them a second, third, and fourth time, too.

Back to Top

Home • Site Map • Contact Us • Price List • Webmaster • Company Profile • Links • Add a Link