Help a Broke College Student Spend His Marketing Budget

Hey yall, I have about 500.00 to spend on marketing and Im not quite sure how to spend it. Before you say 500.00 is noting... which it isn't, it is what I got. What I really have on my side is that I don't mind working hard and a twitter account of over 17k.
What I was originally thinking was to pay someone to make me a marketing plan and work the plan myself, but now Im wondering if that is necessary. Article marketing looks promising, I could pay someone to write articles for me.
I'd really like to hear some ideas of things I could do. Thanks!!

If your suggestion is to put it into the website for better SEO or something, here is the url http://www.portable-photo-printer.com

 

Anything? I would really appreciate some input.

 

Hi, buddy, are you running a video sharing blog? Firstly I see many ads on your site, that is not very friendly. And if I am right you embeded YouTube's video directly. If I were you, I will use my webplayer instead of youtube's. Because youtube's player is embeded its own google ads. And I will use some cool player too, because what people first see is the player.

I suggset you to try Moyea PlayerBox, it is a webplayer maker and it has a free version. Hope will help.

 

First thing you do is take that $500, and...

Put it back in your pocket. Don't touch it until you have $1,000 (after taxes, of course).

The first thing I would do is to work with what you already have. Your website needs z few things. First off, try and replace the 'Zinfolio' logo with your own personal one or remove it entirely. It'll help your site look more professional if you do.

Link to Wordpress about Designing & Replacing Headers

Next step, get some buyer articles written. I would write reviews about specific products first and foremost. Do some keyword research and find out which products people want to buy. When someone searches for the term "portable photo printer", they're either looking for information or a list of the best, top-rated portable photo printers. Try to make that list and see which products you can either get commission from (such as with Amazon). You can also add, because I know it was a popular offer at one time, some offers from a CPA network for ink cartridge refills. Just be creative with what you've got.

Third and foremost, after you've done all that, get some backlinks! You can have the best-looking, most well-written website in all of the internets, but unless you can get people to go to it, you're stuck in the water without an engine. The reason I say backlinks is because being listed in a search engine is one of the cheapest forms of getting people to go to your website. You can also rely on other means such as creating information about your portable photo printers on web 2.0 websites such as Squidoo, etc. There's a variety of ways to get backlinks, visitors and even both simultaneously. You can do the same with article marketing, as the returns are generally much faster than plain old SEO and articles themselves can rank highly in SEO if you do it right.

And all you have to do from then on there is to rinse and repeat. Oh, and take that original $1,000 and buy yourself a nice something nice or play around with other methods of making money. But before that, learn all you can about SEO, as it's either about to get much better or much worse with the coming search engine changes.

 

you are saying 500 but not saying what is the unit 500$ or 500 Pond

 

Put your money back in your wallet. If you are new to internet marketing and i am guessing you are (we all must start somewhere) then outsourcing will not help you. You could pay somebody to write articles for you and pay someone else to market those articles for you. You could have someone build a website, and someone SEO that. HOWEVER you will earn nothing. If you make nothing back from this $500 investment then you are worse off than you started.

It seems like you have hosting and a domain name. I would keep the money. Find a plan. Don't have someone else do it for you, DO IT YOURSELF. Find a method that makes money, then outsource the work. How are you supposed to tell people how to do something, or what you want them to do if you don't know how to do it yourself. I would start finding some FREE e-books on CPA marketing, or building websites with adsense, or even flipping websites and learn from them. If you can do it yourself then when you invest money into outsourcing your $$$ will go a lot further. Good luck!!!

 

PM me if you want SEO help. I can formulate a package for your site and it won't be more than $500.00.

 

cph198 is right. Learn first how to do it for yourself and when you have a function method, then look for outsourcing to improve the quantity of the work, while you are improving your method or find other methods that works. If you do not this way you may lose all you money.

 

I have to agree with cph198 and JakMike - what you need to spend, is time. Take time to learn from guys on forums like DP.

Have a look online for articles and tutorials that will set you on your way.

It's very easy to spend $500 and get no real benefit. Most of the outsourcing services here can be done by yourself initially to start building your marketing campaign.

 

I'd spend my time before my money. Decide what type of marketing you want to do(articles, podcasts, video etc) and then spend your money a month from now on a program that will make your life easier with one of those.

I'm talking about buying submission programs or article spinners etc.

The biggest suggestion I have is to save that money and start working-after a month you'll have a better idea of what you need/want.

 

Save your money.

I looked at your site and it is NOT ready to sell anything. Your return on investment will be a waste.

 

Pray that the $500 will kept you fed for a few months while you do nothing but read and try your hands on everything you think it'll works for you.

 

I would move all css and js to it's own file and include it. add a footer too. I can promote any articles you have too for a cheap price.

 

I'm with all the other guys - save your money.

Firstly make sure that you site are generating some generic traffic but making sure it looks professional, targeting the right keywords and the all important SEO.

Spend your time (not your money as you may need it for something else later) on getting the basic right. You want people that come to your site to be ready to buy. As soon as you start generating money from your site, reinvest that money on outsourcing and other means to drive more traffic to your site.

 

This is just assuming that w.black55 knows anything about marketing or has the time to learn it?

 

That is absolutely correct - not better time to learn and to do it right from the start.

 

Wow, my email alerts were off and I didnt realize anyone had posted to this thread. Thanks for the multiple responses everyone, I really appreciate it.

I have started marketing my site and my current plan is to write two articles, get 30 dofollow backlinks through blog commenting, and writing a post a day. I was hoping to do more, but its amazing how much research it takes to write a quality post/article.

@Zekasu - Thank you for taking the time to write a great reply

 

Holy smacks! You've got 17K followers on Twitter.

If you already have 17K Twitter followers and they are already coming to your site, that puts you way ahead of the power curve.

I recommend you spend that $500 -- only $200 -- on an Aweber autoresponder account and get your Twitter friends to sign up to your Aweber account. Copy and paste the code on your site so you get a personal opt-in list.

Every week send them a newsletter email of useful information.

Something like, "Hey, guys. Check out this really awesome photo!" Continue how you're talking to them in the list like you do on Twitter so they recongnise your same voice and the same old you.

But by the third email, you may want to pre-sell your portable polaroid with your affiliate link. Someone is going to buy from that. Or anything related to the topic of what you and your Twitter followers constantly talk about. It seems like pictures. You can also sell them digital cameras or cool looking tripods. Amazon is full of that stuff.

Do NOT promote to your list every single time, or they will unsubscribe from you. Don't ruin that great relationship with these folks. So sell once every 4 or 5 emails, or when you deem appropriate. You know your audience best.

You'll definitely make money that way.

So spend the money on an autoresponder. That's the best $200 per year you'll be able to invest in. Get your Twitter followers to join the list. Continue the relationship, then promote.

Aweber is a great autoresponder and easy to use.

 

learn and implement the basics yourself....it will cost you less, and when it works out, you can spend the bulk of your money to outsource/automate the process. your way, you'd be paying someone to make a marketing PLAN for you?

 

Thanks for the input! You rock!