Hello Everyone, Im new here but would like to learn more about what most of you think are worth while marketing forms? What did you have the best luck with? Regards Hal
Can you ask your question with a little more detail? I'd like to help but I'm not sure what you mean. Regards, -jay
Well what I mean is, what types of marketing have you found to be more effective. ie. banners, pop-ups, safelists, posting on forums etc... or any offline experiance, press releases, flyers, direct mailouts etc... I know each business will do better with certain types, but just wondering as a whole which ones people think are worth investing time and money into. If Im not clear, just let me know. Regards Hal
That’s still a pretty open ended question without more specifics of what you are planning to market and how. The initial questions that come to mind without more detail are: how large is the market, who is currently selling to them and how, what are their customer acquisition costs, how much does it cost to make, what are people willing pay (or are paying now), how they will buy it, does it need to be shipped and will you have inventory requirements, how is it going to be supported, what is your projected margin and ROI (needed for marketing budget), will you need a distribution channel and if so how much you’ll have to pay, if it’s a local service will you need sales people, etc. etc. etc. In general if it’s going to be a web only offering and you’re starting with a new domain you’ll need to use a combination of PPC and online marketing to attract customers until you get some organic SERP traffic (plan on 6 months at least) which also means you’ll have to focus on SEO or hire it (there are plenty of good SEO people hanging out here at DP) and if you’re using PPC (which is the only web customer acquisition strategy I would advise other than SEO) you’ll have to know and track your ROI religiously unless you have a lot of capital to burn. The SEO bucket contains all of the things you mentioned. - Do not waste your money on banner advertising - which IMHO is worthless. A well written press release with good content and keywords will generate good backlinks and also attract a few visitors. Start a blog and syndicate it – there are plenty of threads here that cover that topic. Direct mail works great in a local market but the costs get really high if you’re doing regional or national mailings. Stay away from email lists. . DO NOT be labeled as a spammer. Put your URL on your car, your house, your forehead, your kids, all your clothes, your neighbors house, your accountant, your attorney, make all of your family put window decals on their cars and their houses, give them sticky notepads with your URL on it to hand out and have them stick it on everyone and everything they see (gas pumps are great!) , use road and yard signs (most local gov’t sign police take the weekend off so put them up on Friday afternoon and take them down on Sunday), swap advertising with local media, buy unused radio spots (usually for $1-$3 per minute). Basically attack all and every venue that can get the word out about your business. Do not be shy and do not worry about being rejected – you will be abused but in the end you’ll win! Sorry about the tirade but without more information it's hard to give specific advice. -jay
Hello Jay Thanks for the reply, that was helpful. I appreciate it. Regards Hal p.s any one out there know of any good program (any form of marketing) or anything that worked well for them? From personal experiance?
Off the top of my head I know I've received traffic from; press releases [online/offline], PPC, Organic SERP traffic, forum signatures, newspaper advertising, online directories, reciprocal links, direct mail and word of mouth.
I have received the best results from forum posts and a press release. (PRWeb.com) But, that is probably due in part to the nature of my business.