I know many people talk about strategies, but how would you rank these in order for intensity?? (currently in random order) A. Tell Friends and Post on Forums B. SEO (if possible) C. PRWEB? D. Stumbleupon/Digg/Squidoo? (how long do I do this for?) E. Submit to sites like TechCrunch, get interviews for your product, press. F. Buying Blog posts from people (over the entire range of these phases) G. Your own strategy How intense (time spent, $$) should you do each strategy?
In order to define the marketing plan for any website, you'll have to take into consideration the niche you're focusing on. For example, if you've opened a social networking website targeting college students, then submitting a press release to PRWeb, wouldn't be as effective as other means of marketing you could exercise. In my opinion, as far as intensity goes, you'll get out what you put in. If you dedicate countless hours to correctly advertising your site, then you'll going to get results. Once again, how much money (if any) would really depend on your niche. I've made a blog post outlining some free advertising tactics that can pretty much be used as a guide by most websites. It might be of benefit to you - http://justinkhoury.com/2007/12/18/effective-cost-free-advertising/ Viral marketing is virtually effective in just about every industry, and can turn you into an overnight success if employed sufficiently.
Some of those things are good, but it's a lot better if you can outsource it. They're very time consuming so it's better if you can just hand it off to someone else and spend your time on the important stuff.
B. SEO (if possible) If possible? Isn't that a given? A. Tell Friends and Post on Forums Again a given. D. Stumbleupon/Digg/Squidoo? (how long do I do this for?) Forever or until they don't bring you traffic anymore. Multiple Squidoo lenses are good for link building keyword searches and you can Stumble your Squidoo page too.