Get Paid

There are some things that advertising, by itself, can’t do. Let’s dispel a few of the most common misconceptions. We’ll call them advertising myths.

Myth #1: If a product isn’t selling well, advertise it.

Advertising - even the most clever, funniest, most expensive advertising - can’t make people buy something they don’t want. It can create awareness of a product, it can even get people to come see the product. But if people know that they don’t like or need the product, advertising won’t help sell it. In fact, advertising can backfire: You could end up drawing attention to the fact that you carry unwanted goods.

For example, look at a choice facing an electronics store. Should it advertise its wide selection of new, hot electronic game cartridges? Or should it advertise those hi-fi needles and stereo speakers that are still gathering dust with the hope of finally unloading them? The store is already taking a loss on the purchase price of the older merchandise; should it then advertise these losers, and thus increase losses of both money and its image as a state-of-the-art electronics vendor?

Why not advertise the best items, the product leaders that will draw people in. And, maybe some of the older merchandise will be seen and picked up at no further expense to the business.

Myth #2: Advertising can create sales.

Many people think that advertising is the same thing as marketing. Or that advertising is the same as selling. Or that they are all the same thing.

Marketing encompasses all the activities that are entailed in moving your product from creation to purchase, from research to packaging. Marketing looks at product, price, promotion and placement factors; you will hear these referred to as the “4 Ps of Marketing.”

Advertising is one way to teach people about your product. You can use it to communicate what a product is, how it will fill a need or enhance life, how much it costs and where the buyer can get it. You can use it to differentiate a product or develop an image.

But it’s good marketing - the overall strategy that might include advertising - that can (and should) produce in sales. Good advertising can create traffic, interest or an image. It can even position your product in relation to the competition. But, by itself, advertising can’t create a sale.

Why not? Because the other marketing components have to work with it. People may want a product they heard advertised, but they won’t buy it unless they:

can afford the price that has been set,
find the place they can purchase it, and
like the product
Myth #3: Advertising can manipulate people to buy.

If this myth was true, then some ad executive somewhere would have the secret to success. If a secret to success exists, why do 80 percent of new products fail? Why do established products drop from sight?

People have needs for products and services, but they have choices on how to fill those needs. Their decision to buy your product will be based upon their belief that what you offer satisfies their need. It will also be based upon their readiness to buy.

Direct Marketing

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Direct marketing is a sub-discipline and type of marketing. There are two main definitional characteristics which distinguish it from other types of marketing. The first is that it attempts to send its messages directly to consumers, without the use of intervening media. This involves commercial communication (direct mail, e-mail, telemarketing) with consumers or businesses, usually unsolicited. The second characteristic is that it is focused on driving purchases that can be attributed to a specific “call-to-action.” This aspect of direct marketing involves an emphasis on trackable, measurable positive (but not negative) responses from consumers (known simply as “response” in the industry) regardless of medium.

If the advertisement asks the prospect to take a specific action, for instance call a free phone number or visit a website, then the effort is considered to be direct response advertising.

Benefits and drawbacks
Direct marketing is attractive to many marketers, because in many cases its positive effect (but not negative results) can be measured directly. For example, if a marketer sends out one million solicitations by mail, and ten thousand customers can be tracked as having responded to the promotion, the marketer can say with some confidence that the campaign led directly to the responses. The number of recipients who are offended by the junk mail/spam, however, is not easily measured. By contrast, measurement of other media must often be indirect, since there is no direct response from a consumer. Measurement of results, a fundamental element in successful direct marketing, is explored in greater detail elsewhere in this article. Yet since the start of the Internet-age the challenges of Chief Marketing Executives (CMOs) are tracking direct marketing responses and measuring results.[citation needed]
While many marketers like this form of marketing, some direct marketing efforts using particular media have been criticized for generating unwanted solicitations. For example, direct mail that is irrelevant to the recipient is considered junk mail, and unwanted email messages are considered spam. Some consumers are demanding an end to direct marketing for privacy and environmental reasons,[citation needed] which direct marketers are able to provide by using “opt out” lists, variable printing and more targeted mailing lists.

Channels
Some direct marketers also use media such as door hangers, package inserts, magazines, newspapers, radio, television, email, internet banner ads, pay-per-click ads, billboards, transit ads. And according to Ad Age, “In 2005, U.S. agencies generated more revenue from marketing services (which include direct marketing) than from traditional advertising and media.”[citation needed]

Direct mail
The most common form of direct marketing is direct mail,[citation needed] sometimes called junk mail, used by advertisers who send paper mail to all postal customers in an area or to all customers on a list.

Typical junkmail.Any low-budget medium that can be used to deliver a communication to a customer can be employed in direct marketing. Probably the most commonly used medium for direct marketing is mail, in which marketing communications are sent to customers using the postal service. The term direct mail is used in the direct marketing industry to refer to communication deliveries by the Post Office, which may also be referred to as “junk mail” or “admail” and may involve bulk mail.
Junk mail includes advertising circulars, catalogs, free trial CDs, pre-approved credit card applications, and other unsolicited merchandising invitations delivered by mail or to homes and businesses, or delivered to consumers’ mailboxes by delivery services other than the Post Office. Bulk mailings are a particularly popular method of promotion for businesses operating in the financial services, home computer, and travel and tourism industries.
In many developed countries, direct mail represents such a significant amount of the total volume of mail that special rate classes have been established. In the United States and United Kingdom, for example, there are bulk mail rates that enable marketers to send mail at rates that are substantially lower than regular first-class rates. In order to qualify for these rates, marketers must format and sort the mail in particular ways - which reduces the handling (and therefore costs) required by the postal service.
Advertisers often refine direct mail practices into targeted mailing, in which mail is sent out following database analysis to select recipients considered most likely to respond positively. For example a person who has demonstrated an interest in golf may receive direct mail for golf related products or perhaps for goods and services that are appropriate for golfers. This use of database analysis is a type of database marketing. The United States Postal Service calls this form of mail “advertising mail” (admail for short).

Telemarketing
The second most common form of direct marketing is telemarketing,[citation needed] in which marketers contact consumers by phone. The unpopularity of cold call telemarketing (in which the consumer does not expect or invite the sales call) has led some US states and the US federal government to create “no-call lists” and legislation including heavy fines. This process may be outsourced to specialist call centres.

Email Marketing
Email Marketing may have passed telemarketing in frequency at this point,[citation needed] and is a third type of direct marketing. A major concern is spam, which actually predates legitimate email marketing. As a result of the proliferation of mass spamming, ISPs and email service providers have developed increasingly effective E-Mail Filtering programs. These filters can interfere with the delivery of email marketing campaigns, even if the person has subscribed to receive them[4], as legitimate email marketing can possess the same hallmarks as spam.

Broadcast faxing
A fourth type of direct marketing, broadcast faxing, is now less common than the other forms.[citation needed] This is partly due to laws in the United States and elsewhere which make it illegal.[citation needed]

Voicemail Marketing
A fifth type of direct marketing has emerged out of the market prevalence of personal voice mailboxes, and business voicemail systems. Due to the ubiquity of email marketing, and the expense of direct mail and telemarketing, voicemail marketing presented a cost effective means by which to reach people with the warmth of a human voice.

More recently, businesses have utilized guided voicemail (an application where pre-recorded voicemails are guided by live callers) to accomplish personalized business-to-business marketing formerly reserved for telemarketing. Because guided voicemail is used to contact only businesses, it is exempt from Do Not Call regulations in place for other forms of voicemail marketing.

Couponing
Couponing is used in print media to elicit a response from the reader. An example is a coupon which the reader cuts out and presents to a super-store check-out counter to avail of a discount. Coupons in newspapers and magazines cannot be considered direct marketing, since the marketer incurs the cost of supporting a third-party medium (the newspaper or magazine); direct marketing aims to circumvent that balance, paring the costs down to solely delivering their unsolicited sales message to the consumer, without supporting the newspaper that the consumer seeks and welcomes.

Direct response television marketing
Direct marketing on TV (commonly referred to as DRTV) has two basic forms: long form (usually half-hour or hour-long segments that explain a product in detail and are commonly referred to as infomercials) and short form which refers to typical 0:30 second or 0:60 second commercials that ask viewers for an immediate response (typically to call a phone number on screen or go to a website).

Direct selling
It has been suggested that Direct selling be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)
Direct selling is the sale of products by face-to-face contact with the customer, either by having salespeople approach potential customers in person, through indirect means such as Tupperware parties.

Integrated Campaigns
For many marketers, a comprehensive direct marketing campaign employs a mix of channels. It is not unusual for a large campaign to combine direct mail, telemarketing, radio and broadcast TV, as well as online channels such as email, search marketing, social networking and video. In a report [5] conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, it was found that 57% of the campaigns studied were employing integrated strategies. Of those, almost half (47%) launched with a direct mail campaign, typically followed by e-mail and then telemarketing.

internet marketing tips

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Web sites are a very effective way to spread the news about your brand. Business owners can also dramatically cut the cost of acquiring new businesses by marketing online. Yet it is remarkable how many companies do not utilise this cheap marketing tool.

Here are seven tips to marketing online:

1: Be very clear about what your website is for. Is it for selling, marketing or branding? Make sure it is very easy to navigate and clearly set out. Don’t have a jumbled, chaotic front page: the simpler, the better. Remember people will scan looking for key words or phases. The book Don’t make me think, by Steve Krug suggests creating a clear visual heirarchy on each page. The more important something is, the more important the headline. Eliminate instructions on the site by making everything self explanatory. Get rid of any small talk like Welcome to … Flash is old hat and highly annoying. And this may sound like the bleeding obvious, but make sure your home page spells out exactly what the business does.

2: Keep your website up to date. So many people fail to update their websites with their latest products and services. The website is now the first place prospective clients go. Investors, journalists and suppliers also will check out a company’s website. Websites need news: update regularly, every day or every week. Assign a person to do this. Make sure the website reflects the spirit and culture of the company. Are you a formal large business? Reflect this with a simple but authoritative tone. If you are a smaller business whose competitive edge includes offering friendly, quick service, then make sure your website is open, cheerful and even cheeky. Make sure there are no dead ends or broken links.

3: Always use your company signature on your email. Make sure your company logo, tagline and contact details are included on emails and the website. A web designer can quickly create an email template that includes all these details. Why not include a digital signature at the end of every email? It is a friendly, warm touch.

4: Forget paper. Electronic brochures are the way to go. Again it is simple to set up a template and on request, email out an e-brochure.

5: Leverage off other people’s websites. Ask suppliers, customers and contacts to put your logo on their website. Include a section on your website called About Our Partners and list all your contacts there. Ask your network to do the same.

6: Always customise your communications. Use the name of the customer or supplier on every email you send to them. Make sure that if the offer is for Victorians only, that the email only goes to Victorians. This is simple to organise.

7: Don’t annoy your customers. If you are sending out regular email dispatches, always have an easy opt-out so that people are left with a good experience even if they are not interested in your products or services. And always ask for feedback. Why not put a blog form on your site asking for testimonials. Other people can read about how good you are.

Before you consider entering into the international market, do as much research as you can. It is a whole new world outside the U.S., and it is very easy to make a fatal mistake. The following are just some of the marketing areas that must be considered.

The market entry requirements or barriers to entry. Social or religious limitations that may affect your business. For example, the MGM Grand in Las Vegas had to rebuild its multi-million dollar entrance that was a tiger’s mouth, because it was offensive to Chinese customers.

International demographics will undoubtedly be much different from your domestic market. You also need to know the exact market size and be able to conduct effective international market segmentation and international positioning.
This will require you to know the current market, market statistics, and market history.

You must have affordable media strategies for consumer or business-to-business marketing. You need to know about the licensing requirements. You have to find appropriate and affordable channels of distribution within the foreign market that can deliver your product where and when you want it delivered.

You may not have protection of intellectual property in foreign markets (copyright, trademark), and that could be a costly problem. You must carefully examine your product or service to
determine whether there is a profitable international market. Your calculations of cost of goods sold or cost of sales,
pricing, and revenue potential must be accurate in the international market.

Consider whether there are available or a lack of local resources. Also, can you secure enforceable contracts with customers, vendors, and distributors in the foreign market. You need to consider stfing, training, and labor laws in the area. For example, there are very strict labor laws in Europe which make it very difficult to terminate an employee.

You must prepare and effective marketing collateral and global
branding strategy. For example, GMC had to change the name of the car named NOVA in Mexico, because NOVA translated
to “no go.” Obviously, that was not a good name for a car.

Learn about international distribution agreements that must comply with foreign laws. Find out if you will need to localize you product or service to make it marketable in the foreign market. Localization is often required in U.S. markets also. For example, Wal-mart had to build horse barns for its store located in the Amish district of Pennsylvania so that Amish customer had a safe place for their horses and wagons while they shopped.

There are other local customs, cultural idiosyncrasies, and mannerisms that must be observed in foreign business. Otherwise you may offend people, and they will not want to do business with you. These cultural diffences will probably be apparent in the negotiating styles. There may even be cultural differences about shaking hands or making eye contact. Also, many other cultures know about American history, and they are insulted if you know nothing about their history.

Internet marketing, also referred to as web marketing, online marketing, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet.

The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management ECRM  systems.

Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply entail building or promoting a website, nor does it mean placing a banner ad on another website. Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that synergizes a given company’s business model and sales goals with its website function and appearance, focusing on its target market through proper choice of advertising type, media, and design.

Advantages

Internet marketing is relatively inexpensive when compared to the ratio of cost against the reach of the target audience. Companies can reach a wide audience for a small fraction of traditional advertising budgets. The nature of the medium allows consumers to research and purchase products and services at their own convenience. Therefore, businesses have the advantage of appealing to consumers in a medium that can bring results quickly. The strategy and overall effectiveness of marketing campaigns depend on business goals and cost-volume-profit (CVP) analysis.

Internet marketers also have the advantage of measuring statistics easily and inexpensively. Nearly all aspects of an Internet marketing campaign can be traced, measured, and tested. The advertisers can use a variety of methods: pay per impression, pay per click, pay per play, or pay per action. Therefore, marketers can determine which messages or offerings are more appealing to the audience. The results of campaigns can be measured and tracked immediately because online marketing initiatives usually require users to click on an advertisement, visit a website, and perform a targeted action. Such measurement cannot be achieved through billboard advertising, where an individual will at best be interested, then decide to obtain more information at a later time.

Internet marketing as of 2007 is growing faster than other types of media.^{[citation needed]} Because exposure, response, and overall efficiency of Internet media are easier to track than traditional off-line media—through the use of web analytics for instance—Internet marketing can offer a greater sense of accountability for advertisers. Marketers and their clients are becoming aware of the need to measure the collaborative effects of marketing (i.e., how the Internet affects in-store sales) rather than siloing each advertising medium. The effects of multichannel marketing can be difficult to determine, but are an important part of ascertaining the value of media campaigns.

Limitations

Internet marketing requires customers to use newer technologies rather than traditional media. Low-speed Internet connections are another barrier: If companies build large or overly-complicated websites, individuals connected to the Internet via dial-up connections or mobile devices may experience significant delays in content delivery.

From the buyer’s perspective, the inability of shoppers to touch, smell, taste or “try on” tangible goods before making an online purchase can be limiting. However, there is an industry standard for e-commerce vendors to reassure customers by having liberal return policies as well as providing in-store pick-up services.

A survey of 410 marketing executives listed the following barriers to entry for large companies looking to market online: insufficient ability to measure impact, lack of internal capability, and difficulty convincing senior management.^[2

Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies. In 2008 The New York Times working with comScore published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found the potential for collecting upward of 2,500 pieces of data on average per user per month.

7 Article Marketing Lessons I’ve Learned

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Article marketing can be a powerful way to improve search engine rankings, drive targeted visitors to your website, and improve your company’s brand. Over time, I’ve learned a number of important lessons when it comes to article marketing.

Article Marketing Success

Secret #1: Only Submit to Popular Article Marketing Websites

Not all article directories, websites, and blogs are the same. Submitting your articles to sites that have a low Google PR or very few inbound links doesn’t do a lot to promote your content or pass along any value back to your site. Consider the sites you submit your content to carefully.

Secret #2: Submit Your Article on a Regular Basis

When I don’t train consistently because of traveling or personal issues, I lose karate tournaments. If you want to achieve your business goals online, you have to consistently write and submit articles. You have to be in front of your audience on a regular basis. Otherwise you will lose sales to your competitors.

Secret #3: Manage Through The Ups and Downs

Not every article you write and submit online will be a success. You will have ups and downs with your article marketing efforts, but you have to keep writing consistently. It’s the only way you will win in the long term.

Secret #4: Simple Doesn’t Mean Easy

It took me a long time to become successful at article marketing. I learned that there are no obstacles that I couldn’t beat if I consistently persevere. How many of us secretly wish our success would be handed to us on a silver platter? Get real. There is work involved. The solution is to make the hard work fun by doing what you love to do (sharing your expertise) and delegating what you don’t (the mind boggling, manual article submission.)

Secret #5: Model Others Who Have Succeeded Online

Find someone who’s already been successful at article marketing. You will find that individual adapts his or her techniques, forms and strategies to continually improve his success. When writing your articles, model article templates that work for others and then adapt it to your own writing style.

Secret #6: Diversify Your Content

Aricle marketing is a great technique for promotion, seo, and other benefits. However, it’s only one tactic to be used as part of a comprehensive online marketing campaign. You can easily turn your articles into products like blog posts, white papers, eBooks, and podcasts.

Secret #7: Use the Right Tools

If you’re serious about article marketing, then consider the many tools (free and paid) for writing and or distributing your articles. I used to spend about 5 - 6 hours submitting articles to directories and can now achieve the same outcome in as little as 30 minutes. I personally use Article Submitter Pro, but any article submission software will do.

The Value of Search Engine Optimization For Internet Marketing

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what they felt was a good description of the value proposition for SEO. At the time I said I would come back to it, and so I have. I hadn’t stopped to think about where search optimization fits into the marketing toolbox in quite some time, this is as good a day as any to give it a whirl.

Why do we optimize?

So, what is the value of search engine optimization? How does one rationalize it, or how can its advantages be articulated to the potential client or lay person?

SERP EverfluxTo start with in simplest terms, what’s the point of a website without traffic? Generally not much, as far as I am concerned. If you spend your wad on that fancy new car and have nothing left over for gas, you’d better be in shape to push it around town my friend. Regardless if it is Paid or Organic (natural search), you will need to consider search engines as a viable traffic source during the website’s life cycle. Consider that the search marketing industry itself is still growing some 39% worldwide and as such, natural search considerations (the more desirable of the two) are constantly increasing pressure on business and web site owners to upgrade their offerings in an effort to further compete in the marketplace.

So what are the core values of SEO?

I suppose if I were to explain it, strangely this is the case at the moment, I would have to put the valuations into two camps; the ‘traffic value’ and the ‘implied value’. While the main goal of SEO is to attain (targeted) traffic, there are a few other more intrinsic considerations to be had;

Traffic Value; There is a variety of data I have run into over the years and one thing is fair to say; Organic Search traffic accounts for anywhere between 65-80% of all traffic to most successful websites out there. In a study from last year, respondents said they chose a search result prior to query refinement as such;search user behavior

23% only looked at the first few results
39% said they only look at the first page of results
19% looked through the first 2 pages
9% only went up to the first 3 pages
10% went more than 3 pages deep.

That’s a full 61% for the first page of search results and a total of 90% only going as far as the third page. This trend towards impatient searching was shown to have increased year over year since 2002. I would expect as much really – with search engines striving to be more relevant, searchers will expect more. The end user is also getting more savvy and educated in how they search. The top 3 pages are Gold I tells ya.. Gold!!

Further to that, I have seen studies that suggest organic traffic actually converts better at some 10+% compared to it’s clicking cousins. Regardless if those facts are ‘best case’ scenarios, it outlines the general power of organic search traffic over other forms of acquisition. This is the basic angle towards the obvious, but what lies under the canopy? As with any data, we can even skew the results to the weak side a few points — and still there is still a very strong argument to be made as to the true competitive value of ranking attainment in the organic search-o-sphere.

Implied Value; One of the more important aspects of attaining high rankings is the perceived value it attains. It not only has a far greater chance of ‘being seen’ if your in the top 3 pages – top 10 even better – but it can also be an act of branding, in that it carries a perceived ‘authority’ from higher perceived value that comes with ‘organic’ rankings in a search engine. This is especially true of top 10 listing on multiples of an industry/market’s ‘money terms’. When some happy surfer

When a component of the marketing plan can achieve potential revenue, as well as building the brand, so much the better. Some research has shown that more than 35% of surfers believe that a top search ranking means the company is a ‘top one in its field’ – that’s a great percentage to be nearly pre-qualified before ever landing on the site; which is certainly an advantage towards increased conversions through a perceived authority status.

I can’t stress the branding value of this. With a strategy in place to capture not only the core (or money terms) but the subsequent query refinements ( long tail terms), you brand an authority element onto the site by re-enforcing your validity. Remember, that 35% can be moved upwards by further qualifying via multiple strategic targets.

Reality beckons - With all of this said, one must temper the excitement, oui? I don’t personally believe that SEO is a means to an end either, I couldn’t imagine any marketing plan being so one dimensional. I have had people say they wanted to stop all of their PPC activities and invest that budget into an optimization program, which is not the greatest idea since the SEO aspects tend to take longer to produce results than the immediate satisfaction of a PPC effort. Time is a major factor to be considered.

Since there are only 30 reasonable placements, 10 good ones and 5 great ones (above the fold), there will be competition for all but the most virgin of niches. There is a need for commitment on the part of the website owner to conquer the peaks of organic dominance. You must always ensure there are other forms of marketing ongoing to fully leverage traffic sources that are available to you. From Social Media to Promotional and Paid avenues, a ful featured marketing plan wheel should never rely on a single spoke.

When done properly – SEO can be the best return for your money, create the greatest reach and even build brand – but that’s when it is done RIGHT. There is no guarantee.

It’s sound business sense

In the end analysis, when building a viable online marketing plan, SEO is something that absolutely must be considered. You can also leverage PPC, Social Media and networking as well as other promotional and branding opportunities, but not maximizing the benefits SEO provides would be truly unsound thinking. It is widely considered to be the most cost effective form of search marketing today.

Search Engine Optimization is so ingrained in every aspect of the website growth plan that it is more of a consideration than an option. You should be thinking about it before you even start developing the website and it should be a consideration in the social marketing and branding activities alike. Its strands must run through the web that is your site, interacting with each activity being undertaken in the website life cycle.

..and now, some random thoughts and resources;

Important Factors of Search Engine Optimization;

Return on Investment; as with any form of marketing, measuring the value of the service often comes down to ROI. Certainly there are spots where brand building and other promotional considerations enter the arena, Show me the dough brobut for the most part generating a reasonable return on the marketing dollars is paramount. In simplest terms, from keyword research to link profile development, there are many ways within an SEO campaign to ensure you are maximizing the efficacy of the program. The cost, in terms of time and money, must always be measured against the ultimate results. Obviously there is the need to maximize the conversion ability of the site to ensure an ultimate ROI, but the SEO program should seek to achieve results that, given a general conversion rate of 1-3% would cover its cost.

Traffic Ceiling; unlike a PPC campaign that has a set amount to work with, traffic from an organic search ranking just keeps on a commin’. There is no running out of cash to keep them flowing into the site. In the world of Paid Advertising you are only going to get as many eyes on the prize as you can afford to bring – organic search traffic has it’s doors open 24/7 and you will never hit the ‘ceiling’. Talk about lasting power!

Site Growth; all too often, the long and winding road to search result nirvana pass right through content-ville. This ultimately also adds value to the site and even legitimacy in many cases. Directly or indirectly the content creation that goes hand in hand with SEO make for a more resourceful and full featured website that is sure to help with conversions to a certain extent as your appearance of authority grows.

Cross Pollination; many of your other online marketing endeavours, from promotion to social media and bookmarking, will offer up ways to further your cause in the search optimization process. From link profile development opportunities to strengthening your sites over-all relevance position, SEO pervades all aspects of site development and promotion. Everything you do can be leveraged to further the SEO cause.

For Reference
The Value of SEO - Search and Internet Marketing rants, news and views - the Fire Horse Trail

 

Some time ago I wrote an article titled “Are you marketing your blog?” where I argued that there is a myth around the Internet that bloggers and webmasters should not spend money on advertising. The myth comes in great extent from the success stories of people that managed to create popular websites without spending a dime on advertising or other paid promotion techniques.

The reality is that most of those successful websites were pioneers on their niche, hence why they became popular without spending money on advertising. Now a days the market is crowded and you have thousands of websites and blogs even for small segments. As a consequence paid promotional techniques are becoming an important factor of any successful marketing strategy.

Below you will find 7 ways to promote your website or blog with a bit of money. You can use them to generate raw traffic, improve your search engine rankings, gain visibility on your niche and so on. Despite the initial investment most of those techniques will pay off on the short to medium term. If you are expecting to make money with your website there is no reason to assume that you will not need to spend some as well, right?

• AdWords: Google make billions of dollars every year from the AdWords-AdSense combo. Why is that? Because they work. Adwords is probably the most efficient method to generated raw traffic for your website. In order to get started you should create an account, add lots (by lots I mean hundreds if not thousands) of keywords that are related your site and set the maximum Pay-per-Click rate at $0.01. After that raise the rate by $0.01 every week or so until you start getting the desired amount of daily clicks. Notice that at lower bids the keywords will be reported as “Inactive for Search”. Do not worry about it, it just means that your ads will not appear on the search network (Google’s search results), but they will appear on the content network (websites of people that use AdSense).
• Site-Specific AdWords: if you pay attention to the AdSense units you will see that most of them have a link titled “Advertise on this site”. This feature enables AdWords advertisers to create customized ads that will be displayed only on specific websites. Those ads work on a CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) rather than a CPC (cost per click) basis, but they can generate a good amount of very targeted traffic since you will be in control of where the ad will be displayed and of the message. You can get even better results if you use some creativity when designing the ads, click here for some examples.
• StumbleUpon Ads: StumbleUpon is a very innovative social bookmarking site that allows users to discover great websites by using a browser toolbar. When the user clicks on “Stumble” he will be delivered a website that people with similar interested rated positively. The user is also able to give positive and negative ratings to any website that he visits on the Internet. StumbleUpon also offers advertising campaigns, called StumbleUpon Ads, where you can deliver your website directly to those “Stumblers”. It costs $0.05 per page delivered, but since the websites that appear on StumbleUpon usually have a high quality it is very likely that part of that paid traffic will convert into regular readers.
• Text Link Ads: if you are trying to increase your search engine rankings to leverage organic traffic you should consider buying some text link ads. While those text links can also generate direct traffic the biggest benefit you will have is an improvement on your search rankings, specially if the links are placed on authoritative and relevant websites. There are several places to buy text links, including specialized companies like Text-Link-Ads and Text Link Brokers or online forums like Digital Point’s market place.
• Direct Banner Sales: most established websites sell banner ads or sponsorship plans directly. Those advertising deals usually are structured with weekly or monthly fees, regardless of the number of impressions or clicks that you will get. Despite this characteristic a banner placement can represent good value for money because apart from the direct traffic you will also create visibility and brand awareness. Readers of the website where you will display your banner will associate the message on the banner with your site or blog. Should they come across that banner or message two or three times it is very likely that they will get curious and decide to check what the buzz is all about. Another advantage of banner placements is the fact that people will unconsciously think that the author of the website endorses your content or product.
• Sponsored Reviews: buying some sponsored reviews is a good way to kick-start a website. They will bring backlinks, traffic and RSS subscribers. There are many market studies confirming that “word of mouth” is the most efficient way to capture people’s attention, and that is just what you get with sponsored reviews. You can either pay a low price (sometimes as low as $5 per review) to get a large number of reviews from small sites or you can focus on large players (which can charge several hundreds of dollars for a single review) that are authorities on your niche. The best way to purchase sponsored reviews is through sites like SponsoredReviews.com, ReviewMe or PayPerPost.com.
• Blog Networks: there are several blog networks founded around a traffic exchange principle. Basically you create an account for you blog and you earn credits by surfing other members’ blogs. Afterwards you can use those credits to make people visit your blog or to display your banners around the network. The interesting part is that most of those blog networks allow users to purchase credits with money, and the price is really convenient. You should be able receive hundreds of visitors or to get thousands of banner impressions for less than 10 dollars. Some blog networks that sell credits include Blog Explosion, Blog Soldiers and Blog Advance.

Bulk Email Marketing is a solution for getting products to sell out we all know this email marketing is a gold reserve in marketing with a mail list we can blast 1000 of emails to different customers.

BENEFITS OF BULK EMAIL MARKETING:

- Direct communication with prospects and customers - bulk email allows direct business to consumer or business to business messaging and also allows for two way exchanges. Communications can be in the form of a letter, an electronic coupons, a colorful and dramatically designed HTML advertisement or streaming video and sound encased in a rich media message.

- Interactivity - Unlike a print ad, television commercial, radio spot, direct snail mail, or any other off line media, a promotion via bulk email encourages and facilitates direct and immediate interactivity. The message is clear - ” Click here to get this” and the bulk email prospects or clients is interacting by clicking.

- Lower cost - Bulk email can be extremely inexpensive on a cost per piece, or cost per email basis, regardless of whether you are in prospecting mode or client update mode, especially when you compare it to other forms of marketing media.

Millions of people use email. In fact, for many people, it has replace the telephone and postal (snail mail) as the preferred method of communication. Therefore, on a marketing level, bulk email marketing is the preferred choice. An email pushes a message directly into an individual user’s in box and does not have to wait for a radio spot or a magazine issue or a television commercial in order to make its debut. Bulk email can be completely interactive; a recipient of an email message can quickly and easily respond with a simple “point and click”. And most importantly, bulk email allows the sender to communicate on a one to one basis through the use of personalized language and other methods.

With the rise of the internet as the choice of gathering of information, the dream of one to one marketing is fast becoming a reality. Opt in bulk email marketing has exploded on to the scene. So why are marketers choosing bulk email as the choice of marketing:

- Bulk email marketing is cheaper - Unlike people that receive postal mail and telemarketing solicitations, most consumers who receive email offers have voluntarily given marketers their choice of what products or service that are interested in. Hence, conversation rate should be higher and cost of deploying an bulk email campaign is alot cheaper that send of mass flyers or catalogs.

- Bulk email advertising is faster - Unlike postal mail (snail mail) campaigns that often takes weeks to get out the door of the letter shop and months to tabulate responses, an email campaign can go out right away and deliver results in minutes.

- Did we mention bulk email campaign is cheap ? - Yes we did but we need to emphasis the point again. Bulk email requires no paper, printing, or postal stamps. An average cost of a postal campaign is $10,000 to deliver a 5,000 flyer where as an average of $5,000 in bulk email marketing budgets can deliver 10 times as much of recipients.

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Use of Internet Marketing

Internet marketing isn’t just for consumer marketers or large B2B firms – it’s a powerful vehicle for companies of all sizes.? Internet marketing offers B2B marketers an opportunity to reach very broad or very targeted prospects to generate leads, communicate a message and raise visibility.

While a B2B marketer has a smaller universe of prospects than a consumer marketer, the value of each prospect is typically far greater.? With a targeted campaign and a good offer, you may only need to generate a handful of highly qualified prospects to generate substantial revenue.? You can use campaigns to generate new leads, sell products, or increase your visibility.

What are the benefits of internet marketing?

• Timing:? Reach businesspeople when they’re actively looking for information, vendors and solutions.
• Immediacy:? You can test and launch very quickly and generate response almost immediately.
• Targeting:? You can deliver your message to very specific audiences.
• Lead generation and nurturing:? You can capture prospects early, provide valuable information, and nurture them throughout the sales process.
• Cost:? You can reach a large audience quickly and at a lower cost than many other media.
• Scalability:? You can run campaigns of any size at any budget level.

As with any marketing program, it’s important to develop a good strategy, target your audience, test, measure and improve – especially because it’s easy and inexpensive to test different aspects of your campaigns to generate the best possible results.?

Create your online strategy

Before you launch an online campaign, it’s important to have a good website that can measure your traffic and convert visitors to prospects or customers.? It’s also helpful to address your online campaigns in your annual marketing plan and budget.

Develop a tangible goal

For example, determine how many click-throughs or leads you need to generate, then estimate your response rates to figure out how many impressions you’ll need.? Make sure you know how you’ll measure your campaign as well.

Target your audience

Profile and target your audience.? You can reach a large audience with your ad, but that doesn’t mean you should – narrow targeting means you can speak more directly to their needs.?

Create a good offer and compelling call-to-action

Your ad needs to generate interest and get people to click through to your website to learn more – give them a reason, a benefit.? Keep your message simple and clear.

Focus on conversion

When you run a great ad, continue the message and momentum on your website.? Don’t drive prospects to your home page; instead, create unique landing pages that focus on the topic you used to generate their interest.? Focus and sell!

Continually test, refine and improve

It’s easy and inexpensive to test your online campaigns.? You can test the offer, the design of your ad, the size and location of the ad, or the sites you choose.? Start with the element that’s most important – for example, the offer – and create two versions of the ad.? Then run them against each other to see which performs best.?

When you keep testing in this way, you can greatly increase your response over time – and that can mean a substantial increase in the number of qualified leads and new customers you generate.? Email us at info@marketingmo.com?or?visit us at?www.marketingmo.com?and we’ll send you a free internet marketing planning tool to help you refine your ideas to plan your campaigns.