Spend money to make money...how do you do it?

Hey guys,

As the saying goes, you have to spend money to make money. Experts suggest that this applies online just as well as offline.

So far, I just spend a little bit on AdWords advertising and a few links here and there, but that's about it.

Is anyone out there spending a lot of their budget on other things?
If so, what do most of your marketing dollars go towards?



Thanks,
Sanzbar

 

Marketing wise:

LiveHelp System - to improve customer service

Custom Coded Dynamic Questionnaire System - pretty sure websites offer a similar service, but I had some spare money lying around, this helps me know what my customers want / prices / what they like / dislike, ect

Affiliate Tracking System - improves overall sales and associates the site with other secure sites which adds a degree of professionality (in my opinion)

Advertising - adbrite, ebay, mailing lists from similar services and Adwords

Sponsorship - sponsor anything I feel is related to my site and/or will get a good return on

I wouldn't say I spend alot on these things, maybe a few thousand $/month? Depends on fixed and variable costs. The bulk of my money goes on new developments for the website, mostly coding wise (The Questionnaire system being one) and developing new sites

 

S.e.o.

 

#1 priority for me is a good webhosting company. If my websites go down, I don't make money.

My spends are usually as follows.

#1 Google adwords
#2 webhosting
#3 domain names
#4 Other peoples services
#5 marketing products - gotta keep informed on whats going on learn new things

 

spend some money on advertising. In return you are likely to earn some money.

 

I've always found that spending my money on a great learning product from an expert has always paid off in the long run. Education ALWAYS pays for itself and then some.

 

I think you will find spending money on Adwords for mortgage...bankruptcy...loans won't pay off. Theirs just too much competition out there and it drives the price per click way too high.
I have sites in these categories and that is what I have found anyway, I ended up spending $2 to get $1 back .

I think SEO is the way to go, I have spent the last few months getting the PR of the sites up and getting keywords onto the first page of the search engines.
Now I am getting more traffic than I was receiving from adwords and it's not costing me, the conversion rate is a bit higher as well.

This segment of the market is very competitive and takes a lot of time and patience before the rewards come.

 

Our money is slip about 50% development cost and 50% advertising costs. It has only been like this for a few months now.... and our development cost are expected to come down.

 

While sometimes it truly is necessary to spend money on advertising, all too often that money goes to waste. Do a lot of research on your market, etc. before letting go of your hard earned dollars.

I believe that in the end, most companies find that the SEO is far more effective than pay per click advertising. For companies selling low cost items, you need to achieve decent conversion rates on your click thrus to become profitable, which isn't always easy. For companies selling larger dollar items, the conversion is less of an issue, but you will generate significantly more traffic for your website through SEO.

 

They used to say that half of all money spent on adverising is wasted, but it is impossible to know which half.

Today this is no longer true, as there are loads of tools available to quantify the effectiveness of your ads. This makes advertising more attractive than it ever has been before.