what to do to market a service?

I'm starting an attempt to create an online BUSINESS offering a service (not product). I've done this business before, but I only lasted a couple months due to the lack of marketing. I'm in the same boat again, but would like better results.

I've promoted products many times and have had some luck, but am not sure where or how to really do paid advertising for a service. I'm able to do SEO to get the results up faster, but struggling with where to start.

What would you start by doing?

 

1. Continue with traditional SEO like you did for your product sites (longer term results)

2. Begin to build a social profile for the business (twitter followers, FB group/page + fans, etc)

3. Find similar niche sites that your product does not directly compete with and contact those webmasters with a newsletter to JV or buy add space from them.

4. Join niche forums and contribute value to them to build rep + trust and casually (not spamming) offer your service to them. This worked great for a hosting service I offered a while back before I sold the site.

 

article submission , press release and link exchange make gud result

 

I agree with Max. Article marketing can be a good way to build long term traffic and backlinks to your site.

Do you have an opt in on your website? This should always be there as part of your long term marketing plan. No point spending time and/or money on generating leads if you do not also try to keep them for future use. If you subscribe them to you list then you can send them regular updates for as long as they stay with you.

 

Topromote your business go for Ads. Submit in all Free Business Ads. Regarding SEO Post your AD as Article submission

 

Hey mezner,

First you need to have a site dedicated solely to the service you are providing.
Then go on about doing your regular old site advertising.
Here is a list:
Article Marketing
Video Marketing
Forum Marketing
Social Marketing
Classified Ads
Answer Sites like Yahoo Answers
Backlinking
Press Releases
Email Marketing
SEO
PPC Campaigns
Blog Commenting
Social Bookmarking

This builds up your sites SEO and could potentially bring you in some business that way.

Another method is to find forums relevant to your service and then see if the forum has a Marketplace.
What you do now is go through the marketplace looking at your competitors threads and note how they construct their thread, such as how the Title is Written, How they utilize headlines, how they structured the content, and so on.
Next create your own thread on something such as Microsoft Office or Open Office, but DO NOT submit it on the forums yet. What you want to do now is to go onto the forums and start building a reputation for yourself of providing quality content.
The reason for this step in between posting is this will give you some authority on your topic and will help to get some people to buy your service.

That is just a little info that I had running through my head and I hope it helps!

- Jeff K.